In the First Reading, Isaiah the prophet announces the coming of the Messiah. Foreseeing the birth of Christ, the prophet says of the people living at that time, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”
Sometimes other people keep us in the dark for their own purposes. But we can keep ourselves in the dark, too, because we cannot face our sins and weaknesses. We do not want to see what we are. We shut our eyes against the light that reveals us to ourselves because that light seems so threatening. We cleave to the darkness because it seems so safe.
When Christ is born, a great light is shined in our darkness because God is in our midst now. The King has come. His dominion is vast; he is Father forever. We lay a plumb-line against a wall to check whether the wall is crooked or not. God himself is the plumb-line by which our unbearable bentness is made manifest to us. When Christ comes among us, that holy measure illumines us and reveals what we are.
And so, as Malachi says (Mal 2:3), “who can abide the day of his coming? Who wants to be in this light?”
And maybe that is why the Messiah comes to us through human birth, as a new-born baby. When he comes, he is tiny, fragile, weak. Needy and hungry, he suckles at the breast of his mother. The great Judge of all the earth comes to the creatures who are subject to him as a baby, helpless, powerless.
How much harsh judgment, superior condemnation, unbending rejection is there in a baby?
Our fear of the light is defeated here. We do not have to figure out how to abide the day of his coming. We can surrender to it with gratitude and joy. The baby invites us. The light of his love welcomes us.
Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and
C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the
collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org