21st December - O Rising Sun

I chose this antiphon for my reflection because the image of light versus darkness is very powerful and is one to which we can all relate. I felt drawn to this image because the world seems to be a very dark place at present and I feel the need to make my home in the Word of God, so as not to be sucked in to its mindset. The Word of God reassures me that ‘a light shines in the darkness, a light which the darkness cannot over shadow.’ We are invited by God’s Word to be a people of hope because we know that the victory has been won. The Light of Christ has come into the world. With the birth of Jesus darkness has been defeated. Death loses its sting. Eternal life is promised and awaits all those who accept Jesus as Saviour.

For us and our salvation, as the Creed says, He came down from Heaven. For no other reason, The Eternal Word, God from God, took flesh and became a helpless babe totally at the mercy of humankind and eventually put to death by the very people He had come to save.

It is not sufficient then to celebrate Jesus birthday. It is not enough to gaze with wonder and awe at the crib. Jesus emptied himself and entered our world for one reason and one reason only, so that through Him, with Him and in Him, we might enter Heaven.

Whether we realise it or not, every human being awaits Jesus because Jesus alone makes salvation possible for the whole human race. All the restless longings of the human heart have their answer in Him. We, who have come from God, are created with a hidden ache to return to Him, and only Jesus can bring this about.

God being with us in this world, astounding though it is, is not the final meaning of the Incarnation. Christ came to be with us so that through His life, death and Resurrection, he would become the Way by which we could be re joined to God’s purpose in creating us- to be happy with Him forever. We are to be people of joy because Jesus has dispersed the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

This is the wonderful exchange we celebrate at Christmas.’ O wonderful exchange. The Creator of human nature took on a human body and was born of a Virgin. He became man without having a human Father and has bestowed on us his divine nature’

There is a very graphic image in the Book of wisdom depicting or foretelling the coming of Jesus. It is well known to us all

It is a very visual image, easily conjuring up Christmas scenes- the silence of a bleak December night. You almost feel the atmosphere- dark thoughts flooding in,- the outer darkness somehow awakening all the inner darkness which the hustle and bustle of the day keeps in the shadows. And then suddenly, unexpectedly, just as you are about to be engulfed in darkness, the world is set alight. Light shatters the darkness. Darkness is actually no longer there. Just like that, the half spent night both inner and outer is stopped in its course. This is in fact what happens on Christmas night. Jesus' entry into our world dispels all darkness. In His Light all is revealed. We see clearly in Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem, the true centre of human history and of our own lives, our purpose and our goal. Jesus is the beating, pulsating heart of time, the mystery finally and fully revealed.

Any night in which we allow the light of Christ in, to dissipate our darkness is Christmas- the night in which Christ is born again in us and through us into our world.