Love is the central theme of Jesus’ teaching and it
is the foundation of every Christian living. God expressed His love in the
beginning by creating the world and more specifically humans. To instill His
love in humans and make humans understand that He loves them abundantly even
unto death, God sent His only Son Jesus to die as a ransom for their sins. Such
was the madness of God’s love. Love is not receiving but giving. Love can be
expressed and given in many ways and in different forms; it need not be
material in nature always. The recipient of the love is not a person in pity -
though sometimes s/he is. The receiver of the love is a potential being who is
capable of giving love back reciprocally. Thus s/he becomes mutual in loving. There
is no compulsion to love but there is a compulsion from love to express love
explicitly in a vivid form. The readings of today focus on the love of God to
humanity, which makes God to express it in a human form.
In the first reading as king David was thinking to
build a Manson for God’s ark to dwell, the Lord Yahweh sends His word through
Prophet Nathan concerning the permanent place for the people of Israel,
offspring for David and the blessing to make his kingdom last forever. God
offers these three blessings upon David freely without being asked by David.
This shows the love of God to king David, whom He chose from pasturing and
shepherding the sheep (2 Sam 7:8). In the Gospel God sends his angel Gabriel to
Mary to announce the birth of the messiah through her womb. Mary won this
favour from God freely without ever being asked for. She would not even
consider herself worthy of this favour, that’s why she replied to the angel, “I
am the handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38). These both occasions are not partiality
shown by God to two individuals for their personal welfare. Rather, these two
personalities in the bible removed partiality from their life story to
cooperate with God for the welfare of the whole nation and humanity; David cooperated
with God’s plan of securing the kingdom of Israel for ever to defend his people
from the enemies and foes (neighboring nations). Mary through her ‘Yes’
cooperated with God’s plan of salvation to save the humanity from sin and
death. God loved these two personalities in a special way because their love
was open and indiscriminate through which God’s love captivated many in return.
God loves everyone, but His love to each one is
unique and different. We can notice unique differences in God’s love for above
mentioned two personalities; David and Mary, as they differ both in time and
gender. In the first reading the son of David, born of human father in flesh
was promised to be adopted by God as His Son. God promises to father Solomon,
the son of David. Whereas in the Gospel God is adopting Himself to the human
form to be born as human. On the one hand, God, the higher being to adopt
human, the lower being as son is sensible and tolerant. On the other hand, that
same higher being, God to confine Himself to a state of lower being is
unthinkable and unreasonable, at the same time it is not impossible. Jesus
became human and confined Himself to the state of human till the end of His
life on earth. Though Jesus was accompanied by His divinity, still His human
form held Him securely. His divinity required human form (the flesh) to show it
out. God who was lifting up the fallen man in the old testament was being
pulled down in new testament to uplift the humanity forever and transcended it.
This is the love, which entered the human history and filled it with a mystery.
As we light the candle of love today, let us open
our hearts to welcome Jesus in every person we meet, in everything we do and everywhere
we go. Let this Christmas in the time of pandemic be an opportunity to share
the love of God with others not only in material but in a more meaningful way
through our participation in suffering and affliction of others. May love of
God engulf us with hope to rise up the wounded humanity and heal the sickly
world.
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