Christ Is the Story of the Father
The Nativity the Lord
We learn a lot from the stories people tell us. We learn not only about the events people describe but also about those who describe them. The words they choose, the emotions they exhibit, the parts they accent, the details they diminish all reveal the person who speaks to us. The more stories we have, the more we know about the storyteller; and different stories and different kinds of different stories uncover different facets of who they are. Every story is a window into the teller’s heart through which we see what we otherwise couldn’t and can love the person we wouldn’t otherwise know. But no single story, however personal, could ever reveal the entirety of their person; and no number of stories taken together could ever bring them fully to the fore. Stories reveal but they also conceal, and the person who tells us stories will, in the end, always remain at least partially a mystery to us.
Our human lives are filled with stories and are, in fact, stories themselves. We come to know others through the stories they tell, and others come to know us through ours. We might even notice that our stories also show us something of ourselves. And God knows this, and, thus, it is fitting that God chose to reveal himself to us by way of stories. We call the collection of God’s stories, those written in scripture and those lived in tradition, divine revelation. Through these stories, many and various, God pulls back the veil that shrouds himself and his plan and grants us the ability to see him, that we would know him and love him.
Christmastime is, above all other times of the year, a time for stories: stories told around the tree or over dinner. Perhaps you came to church today expecting to hear the story of the angels and shepherds in that little town of Bethlehem. But the Church has given us today a different story, a story that reaches back to the very beginning: to that when before time, when there was only God.
Every story, no matter the kind, has one common requirement: stories must have words. Saint John begins his gospel with this declaration: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John borrows this Word from Greek philosophy. The word for Word is Logos, and the Greeks understood logos to mean reason or meaning. John tells us that God is meaning. And if God is meaning, then God has meaning to convey, and, thus, God has a story to tell: the story of himself and his plan. God tells this story through his Word, and it was through this Word that all things came to be, and without him nothing came to be, so that all created things tell some part of God’s story and reveal some feature of his face.
But telling it thus, God’s story was only ever incomplete. The Letter to the Hebrews begins: In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets. God spoke in fragments not full sentences and used images and metaphors instead of telling it straight. As a result, some could see him, but most could not, for only those who had listened with pure minds and open hearts could see through to the truth behind the fragments and images and could understand it.
We celebrate today that God’s story has taken on a new medium: a medium that all can hear and understand. God no longer speaks to us vaguely or indistinctly. No, God who speaks to us always through his Word has, in this Word, become flesh and made his dwelling among us, that we would see his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. God’s story has taken flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the eternal story of God, complete and entire, the fullness of all revelation, the perfect image of the Father, without whom the Father would only ever remain a mystery.
We learn a lot from the stories people tell us, and we learn even more from the eternal story the Father tells this Christmas in Christ, his Word-made-flesh. But what we learn from him is neither trivial nor dispensable. We have all heard stories that leave us wondering: What was the point? God’s story is entirely different, because the story God tells in Christ is the story of everything. He is the true light, which enlightens everyone. He reveals to us the meaning of all things, for all things were created and derive their meaning from him. And, as part and pinnacle of his creation, his revelation also reveals the meaning of us: who we are, why we exist, and what we are destined to become. John sums all that up: to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. Without this revelation —that our life is destined to become one with God— our life is meaningless. Without this story, our story is absurd. Only within God’s story is our story complete and makes any sense at all.
This Christmas is God’s invitation to listen again to the story he tells you. It does not matter whether you have grown tired or stopped listening or have hung to this point on his every word. Let today be a new beginning. Make a new commitment to the Lord. God has said all he has to say in Christ. Now we must listen to Christ for God’s story to be completed in us. The place where God tells his story in Christ is in the Church that Christ himself founded: in her prayer, in her sacraments, in the people he has made his own. We meet Christ in all three, and all three are here in his Church. Whether you have come from near or from far, this Cathedral is always available to you, as is every Catholic parish you find, to be the place where you come to see and adore Christ and through him to know and to love the Father.
If the story of our life doesn’t make sense, then it’s missing the Word, the story, that ties it together. But this Word is not hidden, we do not have to go searching to find it: this Word has become flesh, made his dwelling among us in his Church, and shows us here and now his glory, full of grace and truth, which uncovers the meaning and purpose of our life within the meaning and purpose of God.
So, come, let us adore him. Let us adore the Christ the Lord, God’s story in the flesh, who calls us to himself that God’s story, in us, would be complete.
Homily preached December 25, 2022 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen