Allow me to wish all of you, once again, a most blessed Christmas. In the midst of all of the troubling news in the world, we need a moment to celebrate good news! We all know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the four evangelists. They wrote the gospels, the proclamation of the Good News of our salvation. But, as with so many words we use to describe our faith, we have borrowed and repurposed an ancient Greek word – ἐύαγγελιστής -evangelist. Originally, the Greek word for evangelist, which means “one who brings good news,” described the runner sent from a battlefield to announce whether the nation had been defeated and was to be enslaved, or victorious and free. All eyes were on the crest of the hill beyond which the battle had been fought for that first glimpse of the messenger. If he was slumped over and moving slowly, it meant defeat. If his hands were raised in joy, victory was theirs. You will recall that the word marathon has its origin from when an evangelist ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians in 490BC.
The early Christians repurposed this word – evangelist – to speak of the messenger of our salvation in Jesus Christ. Christmas, in particular, is a time to raise our hands in joy because, through Jesus, victory is ours. Through his life, death and resurrection, the ancient enemies – sin and death – have been defeated. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, bearing good news” we hear declared so joyfully in today’s first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. The first evangelist of our faith is Jesus himself, whose birth leads to divinity and humanity – separated by the sin of Adam and Eve – now, once again, being reunited with God. We read in the Book of Genesis that, in the beginning, God created us by the word of his command and placed us in his garden. But, we rebelled and wanted to be like God ourselves and so we were expelled from the garden and began to experience death. Today, however, we rejoice because the Word who, as we hear in this morning’s gospel, was with God in the beginning, has come to restore us to life. With the coming of Jesus, the Word who became flesh and made his dwelling among us, human life now has divine potential, which no force can defeat. To be human is to have a godly destiny, life with God forever.
In today’s second reading, we hear that, “in times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through his son.” And he has spoken good news to us. The good news of Christmas is the Gospel of divine life. It is proclaimed at every Eucharist celebration in the prayer that the priest recites as he mixes water and wine in the chalice and says: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”
Union with Jesus – the great gift we receive today at Christmas – means that we are a new creation, human nature perfected by grace, bound for eternal glory. What a victory cry that is!
At every Mass on Christmas Day, we hear the majestic prologue of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is the “logos,” another Greek word that, according to the Greek ancient philosophers, spoke of that defining source and organizing principle of the entire universe, the mind of the Creator expressing itself in everything that exists. Jesus is therefore the visible image of the invisible God, the perfection of God’s intentions for the universe. John echoes the first words of the first creation account found in the Book of Genesis – “In the beginning” – to proclaim this new creation. Light appears in the darkness to reveal the destiny of the universe and the ultimate purpose of human life: eternal, intimate friendship with God.
Our celebration of Christmas is appropriately filled with very human activity. The gathering of families, the exchange of gifts, the joy of children, the festival of lights that we all cherish – all of this helps us to experience the connection with God that Jesus, his son, the Word-made-flesh has brought to us. After all, he was born into the Holy Family of Mary and Joseph and, as we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus is the light of the human race; the light shining in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
Christmas is a time for us to reflect on this great gift that still is among us today, Emmanuel, now in the form of bread and wine that will soon become our Lord’s life-giving Body and Blood. He came in the midst of a troubled world. As we find ourselves in a troubled world, we are assured that Jesus the Word of God who endured his own tremendous troubles – temptation in the desert, betrayal by one of apostles and abandonment by all but one, a mock trial complete with a death sentence – lightens our troubles and enlightens the way for us back to his heavenly Father. And, he has called each of us – we who believe in him – to continue to lead one another back to God. As we celebrate this great feast during another most unusual year, this is my prayer for all of us. Merry Christmas!