Fourth Sunday of Advent

Lectionary: 12

"When Christ came into the world, he said: 'Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me....'

 T he Son of God, like every other human being, received his human flesh from his Mother. As Saint Paul said, he was “born of a woman, born under the law.” He lived as we do with the laws of physics, motion, thermodynamics, and gravity. They applied to him as they do to us. There are also laws of biology, physiology, sociology, and economics; plus laws of federal, state, and local governments. There is, in this world, no “land lots of land with an open sky above.” Because we are human bodies, everyone is fenced into complex systems of laws upon laws. 

However, many people – forgetting who they are and where they came from – think of their bodies as fungible commodities. Rather than admitting we are human bodies, they like to say, “We have human bodies, but we are really human souls and someday our bodies will die and our souls will be released to go somewhere else. That, they suppose, will be true freedom.

Taking that harmless notion further they say these plastic bodies can be rebuilt, reprogrammed, re-sexed, or replaced by newer, more versatile models. Perhaps, in a few years, when they’re too old and no fun anymore, our fun loving souls can migrate into animals or children; or computers to survive indefinitely as avatars in cyberspace. They cling to a so-called spirituality that insists our human bodies are not real; or if they’re real they’re temporary and disposable. 

Some Christians say that Jesus was a human being, a Jewish man and citizen of the Roman empire under Tiberius Caesar. But, they say, with his death and resurrection he had finished being a human body. He had become  a spirit – a life-giving spirit – that is no longer male, Jewish, or human, and no longer the Child of Mary. They dismiss our belief in the glorified body of Christ, preferring a disembodied Jesus. 

They forget the purpose for which he died; it was not to be relieved of his despised, useless body with all its vulnerability. Rather, he was born, died, and raised up so that he might give his sacred body more freely and completely to us in the Blessed Sacrament. Before his death, he could be physically present and visible only in one place at a time; but in his glorified body he is everywhere the Eucharist is celebrated by the believing Church. 

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus as a male, Jewish, human child. It is also a celebration of gratitude for all the goodness of our human nature, including our frailty, vulnerability, aging, and eventual death. It is all good; it is all holy. And we learn from the Lord – we learn as the Spirit teaches us – to be glad and grateful for who we are. We learn to give ourselves to others freely and generously, without holding back, without fear of betrayal. Even when betrayals happen we can learn from the experience and be grateful for it. 

The Catholic Church celebrates the enduring humanity of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I think of that last evening before he died. After he had commanded his disciples during his Last Supper to, “Do this in memory of me,” he went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and there the full import of his own mysterious words came to him. They struck hard at him and knocked him to the ground. Having said “Eat my flesh” and “Drink my blood” he could not turn back from what had to follow. 

What followed involved his human body as he had never known it before. Perhaps you have had a similar "awakening experience" when you were injured or hospitalized. I spent three weeks in a hospital bed and, believe me, the experience changed my understanding of my body and myself. 

Jesus would be manhandled by professionals who knew how to inflict pain, were under orders to do so, and enjoyed their work. He would be driven past exhaustion to carry his cross after the slaps, insults, beatings, and scourging. He would finally be suspended by his hands and feet on the unforgiving wood of the cross – for the rest of his life – which stretched on from minutes to hours. There, in that agony, he learned what it means to be human; what it means to give his life for others; and what it means to love as God loves.

But even during those hours of unbearable suffering, he would not regret his birth, or life, or the work he had accomplished. He would not be like Job who cursed the day he was born. He still loved the Woman who bore him. and the Father who begot him in a Virgin’s womb. He still loved the disciples although they were nowhere to be seen!  

And with his risen body, he teaches us to receive him, and to be glad of our human bodies which can receive him. Just as I can appreciate a beautiful sunset  because I have eyes to see, and I am glad I have eyes to see; so can I delight in the supreme gift of my human body which can receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have no need to change my body, to make it lighter, heavier, taller, shorter, prettier, or healthier. It's fine because it knows the Body and Blood of Jesus.

The Wise Man Job regretted the day he was born, but he was finally reconciled to his human frailty and said,

“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,

and naked shall I go back there.

We accept good things from God; should we not accept evil?

The LORD gives and the LORD takes away;

blessed be the name of the LORD!”

It’s all good because God is all Good. Whether we attend a baptism or a funeral; whether we finish our lives at home, or in a hospital, nursing home, or prison; whether our plans have succeeded or failed, our dreams fulfilled or disappointed, whether we spend the holidays with friends and family, or alone, lost and confused – it’s all good. It is all human and when the Lord accepted his flesh from the Virgin, his spirit from the Lord, death from his tormentors, and resurrection from the Father, he promised a complete transformation and recreation of our human bodies.

As Saint Paul said, “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. (Philippians 3:21)