FIRST READING: Isaiah 52:7-10 – How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
SECOND READING: Hebrews 1: 1-6 – In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee?” Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son?” And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”
GOSPEL: John 1: 1-18 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [...] The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. [...] And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
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Origen (184–254 CE) maintains in his Philocalia that most of the Bible contains ‘doctrines in narrative form’ (Chap. 1, para. 15). A few paragraphs later he confesses that he did not know how they who think the narratives were written for their own sake “will reconcile themselves to the will of the Holy Spirit” (para. 29). While driving home the fourfold senses of Scripture—the literal, allegorical, moral (tropological), and mystical (anagogic)—Origen also insisted, together with all the Fathers of the Church, that the Bible is not a history or a science book. It is essentially a book of faith.
This is particularly relevant when approaching Jesus’ nativity and infancy narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. None of them were intended to be taken literally. Doing so only banalises the text, as is habitually done. What they really are, indeed, are doctrines in narrative form.
Some of the basic doctrines that the narratives contain are today proclaimed in different genres of speech. To be sure, the three readings successively carry us deeper and deeper into the wonder and fascination of Jesus. The disciple of the prophet Isaiah, writing during the Babylonian captivity, proclaims a message of peace. Certainly, Jesus’ mission can fairly be summed up in this one word—peace—which embraces his doctrine of justice and non-violence. More than a mere moral figure, however, Jesus is also mediator and saviour. This is basic message proclaimed to Jewish Christian converts who lived under great pressure from Judaisers in the first century. Jesus is presented to them as immeasurably superior to the patriarchs and prophets of old; Jesus as the authentic ‘face’ of God. Deeper still, after years of prayer and meditation about God’s love, John appropriats for himself a beautiful Greek hymn of his time, and proclaims Jesus as the incarnate Logos (Word), consubstantial with God the Creator.
The over-all invitation of today’s writings is to hush and be still before the birth of Lord Jesus, and very simply, very quietly, adore him in his boundless love.
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