“So since tonight is Christmas Eve, what better way than to start kind of with a Christmas story? Here is this kid. This child named Pete and Pete wanted a very expensive train set for Christmas and so his parents knew this, so his father, his father, asked him, ‘Pete, do you know why we give gifts during Christmas?’ And Pete answered, ‘We give gifts during Christmas because God has given us his son.’ and his father said, ‘Good. You’re correct.’ And he says, ‘Do you know why God gave us his son?’ And Pete answered again, ‘Because he loves us, right?’ And his father said, ‘Correct once again.’ And now his father said, ‘Pete, do you know that even if I don’t give you your train set that you know that I still love you with all my heart?’ Now, Pete thought about this and he thought, there’s two ways I can answer this. I can answer this where I can kind of guilt trip him and say no and so my father have to give me this toy set, or I can tell the truth, but he realized his father was much smarter than he was. So he said, ‘Yes, father, I know even if I don’t get that train set that you still love me very much.’ Now Pete thought I just lost my chance. I gave him the out. I gave him the out that he doesn’t have to get me this train set. Little did he know later on that evening or that Christmas that he’s still got that train set, but what he also got was this great lesson of love that train set is now years later, is rusting in the attic, but the lesson of love is not resting, but still pretty much alive in his heart today. That is the message of Christmas, and sometimes the world forgets that. They forget why we give gifts in the first place. The reason why is because God has dwelt among us. God gave us his son and that message right there really shows us the perfect relationship. It really is a message of love and there are all relationships should center around. That love, true love is a giving of yourself to the other. You know, the difference between well God and Santa Claus is that Santa Santa just give stuff to us. Right? Just stuff, but God, he gives us himself and what better gift than to give yourself to another?
You know, there is always the image of a marriage that God came to marry humanity with himself. That is the marriage of humanity and divinity. That’s why Mary, his mother, is the humanity, but Jesus is fully human from Mary, but fully divine from God, a perfect marriage there. And really, each of your marriages should reflect that. A total self giving love to each other as exclusive as unconditional and your marriage reflects God’s marriage to us that we celebrate this evening. That’s what we celebrate today, the great marriage of God for us. Really, God comes down, he comes down to be human so that we can be like him. Really he comes to really sanctify every part of our lives. That is the great hope we hold throughout our ages. Have you ever wondered how this story came about? There is many stories of virgin births throughout history. Maybe throughout different religions. Some of them might be myths. But why this? Why this virgin birth do we remember? Why this Christmas? Why this one birth from a person? And the main reason is because it wasn’t just an ordinary person. It was truly God and that is a gift for us. His name is Emmanuel meaning God is with us. The great hope for us, even in our struggles of life, is that God is with you throughout it all.
You know, in the first reading today, from the prophet Isaiah, he talks about how all the people, the Jewish people who are hoping for the Messiah. He gave his prophecy that there will be born a son and he will be the savior from the heritage of David. He will bring light to all the world. The thing for us is that we often think we know how God will be like. For the Jewish people also thought the same. You know in the Gospel today talks about Caesar Augustus and there’s a great juxtaposition between Caesar Augustus and Jesus. Probably many of the people thought that the Messiah will come out like Caesar Augustus, have a great army, a powerful army to dominate the enemies of Israel or have all this splendid glory before him, but what does Jesus come to us? He comes to us in a small town of Bethlehem, and it’s really to two insignificant types of people- Mary and Joseph, just poor people so poor that they couldn’t, they couldn’t afford an inn in this small town, but had to give birth to their child in a stall of an animal. That’s how humble God comes to us, but it shows us that God doesn’t work like our world does. He doesn’t come to us as we might think. He really flips everything upside down of what we might think of our lives or maybe it’s right side up that even through our sufferings, that there is great hope for us because Christ has now sanctified every single part of our human lives because he has come to us today, but not only that, two thousand years ago, yes, but Christ continues to come to us each and every day and especially here in the Mass.
I talked about this marriage routine, the humanity and divinity Christ also makes himself visible to us in the Eucharist. You know, the prayer that the priest prays over the bread and the wine is, ‘Blessed by God forever for through the fruit of the Earth and work of human hands.” He talks about fruit of the Earth and work of human hands. Really, fruit of the Earth is, is of God’s nature of just the natural Earth, the wheat, the wheat that you have to to grow the work of human hands, the humanity. It’s through that, that we get the bread and it’s through the blessing of God that he comes to us now visible in bread, for in some ways his body of Christ is truly there before us. The invisible is made invisible to us, but not through the eyes of our senses, but through faith. It’ss through the faith of God, that we see him before us. So this great celebration for us should be a great day of joy, joy that God is truly with us. But he calls each of us to open our hearts to him. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have to understand it. We don’t have to figure it out, but when we let go, when we humbly accept him as he is that God didn’t come to teach us just one thing or another. He really came to give us himself just like any relationship we have. So as you come before the Lord today, where Christ is truly present before you in the Eucharist, let us to strengthen the courage to see that this is love, true love from God and as you receive Him today, may you open your hearts to him that you may love as he loves us. Amen.”