After Christmas, things go from hectic to boring quickly, at least until New Year’s and the bowl games come along. Here is a way to change dullness to fascination.
Pick up a Bible. Most households have one. If not, go online. Then, find the Gospels of Luke, Matthew and John. Turn to selected sections and read about events and circumstances that have uplifted people for 2,000 years.
Start by looking for references to Mary. Go to Luke 1:26-38. These verses recall the announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary that she will be the mother of the long-promised Messiah.
Mary’s shock at the Incarnation
Note her reaction. She is surprised, probably shocked. Who would not be, seeing an angel, receiving such news? She cannot understand how it can happen. She is a virgin. The angel clarifies everything. The most fundamental fact of life is being set aside — the need for every human to have a male and female parent — by God’s almighty power. The lesson is that creation itself exists to serve God’s purpose.
Her child will have one earthly parent, Mary herself, a human. Her infant will be human because she is human. The Church teaches that we are saved from eternal death because of sharing human nature with Jesus in the incarnation.
The angel addresses her as “full of grace” (Lk 1:28, RSV), a way to say that Mary is without sin, totally loyal to God. She consents to whatever God has in mind for her.
Turn then to Luke 1:39. During her pregnancy, Mary goes to visit her relative, Elizabeth. The two women greet each other. Mary’s greeting praises God, in what now is called the “Magnificat.” Her words reveal her faith but also her considerable knowledge of her Jewish faith. Her greeting is sprinkled with images and phrases from the Hebrew Scriptures, called the “Old Testament” by Christians.
This coincidence reveals that Mary thought long and hard about God. She knew the Scriptures well enough to quote them from memory.
Millions of other people have put things together because they too have thought long and hard about God, and God’s place in their lives.
Jesus’ compassion
Now, go to St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 2. Jesus was born, in the human process of birth. In other Gospel verses, Jesus will show familiarity with, and literal experience of, human feelings and emotions. He took pity on the widow at Naim (Lk 7:11). He rescued the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1), and the “Good Thief” on Calvary (Lk 23:43). He wept at the death of Lazarus (Jn 11:1).
Jesus understands us and forgives our shortcomings and sins.
The courage of the Three Kings
Read further. Matthew reports the visit of privileged individuals from the “East.” Their story is intriguing. Only Matthew’s Gospel mentions them. Who were they? What were they? Kings? Scholars, or “wise men?” “Magi,” whatever that meant.
This much is clear. They were not in want. They commanded their own actions, yet they knew that they needed something. They were honest enough to admit that only Jesus satisfied their need.
Maybe they were brave enough to admit that Jesus was the answer. They encountered Herod, the Romans’ stooge who ruled Palestine. Ambitious, fearful for his own position, amoral, Herod, knowing of their search, might have taken them out, just as he slaughtered the Holy Innocents (Mt 2:16).
God warned the Magi about Herod. They listened. Church teachings warn us about the danger created by sin. Do we listen? Face facts. We too live among evil people and evil ideas. We do not know everything. We make mistakes.
In the beginning was the Word
Now, go to the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel. Read it with concentration. A mark of John’s Gospel is its eloquence. Its message is often extraordinarily deep but understandable, if read attentively, because of John’s literary skill.
In the first chapter, magnificently, elegantly, convincingly, this Gospel tells us what the coming of Christ meant, then, and now.
