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When the liturgy celebrates the events of Christ’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection, its purpose is not merely to remember, to think back over what happened to Jesus in the course of His human existence. That’s part of it, of course, but more important in our liturgical celebration is the deepening of our awareness of the meaning of what Jesus experienced and of its significance for our salvation. In addition to increased understanding, these liturgical observances alert us to the continued presence and action of Christ in our world today.
Today’s live letter is intended to remind us of the practical consequences for us of God’s coming into our world as a human participant.
The reading is from the letter to Titus. This book of the New Testament is addressed to a young bishop in the name of Paul. It is devoted mostly to moral direction, practical guidelines for virtuous living that the young bishop is to preach to his people. Immediately prior to this Sunday’s reading there is a long section in which the author tells Titus what to tell to older men and older women, younger women and men, slaves and masters. Now, in our reading, the author gives the theological underpinning for what he has been saying.
He speaks of the two comings of Christ. The kindness of God (i.e., Christ) has already appeared in the world for our salvation. (The tense of the Greek verb used here suggests not only a past action or event but also results of that action continuing into the present.) This appearance of Christ with its perduring results serves as a source of moral training for us, as a kind of school to help us learn how to live. Christ’s life and ministry teach us to offer to God the service that belongs to Him and to turn away from giving any priority to earthly values. We are to practice self-control and gladly offer to our neighbor and to God what is owing to them. Our Christian life should be a life of peaceful equilibrium with ourselves, with our neighbor, with God. That’s where Christ’s birth leads us.
If we learn from what the earthly life and ministry of Christ teach us, we will be able to look forward in hope to the next coming of Christ, when He will appear again in the full and final glory of His divinity. By then we will have been freed from the demands of sinfulness and will be constituted as a people of holiness, capable for all eternity of being and doing what God desires.
The use of this piece of the New Testament for Christmas makes it clear to us that the birth of Christ was more than a quaint happening in picturesque circumstances long ago. The birth of Christ changed everything for all of us. Because God was now living a human life, all human life has a different dimension. Jesus unites us to Himself through the gift of His life, but He also directs us by His action and His teaching in the ways of human behavior, in God’s own idea of how people should conduct themselves.
God’s initiative of salvation that manifests its final stage in the birth of Jesus is a gift to us, something that we do not deserve but can only receive. But salvation is not an inert thing that God gives us to hold onto. It is a relationship between persons and such relationships call for a response, for an exchange of attentiveness. The response that God’s gift of Himself to us calls for is consistency, living in a way that is in harmony with the life of God that Christ has shared with us. This involves rejecting "godless ways and worldly desires." It means living "temperately and justly and devoutly." Those are all things that go with trying to express the life of Christ through our individual human existence. If we learn these lessons that the life of Christ wants to teach us, we will become God’s people, practiced enough in goodness to fit into eternal life with Him.
The appearance of Christ at the beginning of His earthly life and His final appearance at the end of time call for response and consistency on our part. But they also call for gratitude. God’s appearances, past and present, are God’s gift to us. The loving kindness that lies behind God’s appearances are a unique source of instruction for us. God does not prepare us for goodness by threats and punishments, but by becoming one of us and by calling us to live a life that is His. We are not slaves or employees. We are God’s children whom He schools to live as members of His family. And that calls for gratitude.
The infant Jesus lying in the manger is a dear image in the Christian imagination. During any Christmas season we will see it expressed in hundreds of ways in crib scenes and Christmas cards, in school plays and in carols. But the infant Jesus lying in the manger is also a challenge to response, to consistency, and to gratitude. "Here I am," Jesus says. "What are you going to do about that?"
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Conversation Questions.
How does Christ appear in my life?
Why do I try to behave according to God’s law?
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