Christmas - Homily 13

Homily 13 - 2020

We probably all accept that Jesus was both human and divine, one like us and one like the Father. If we are a little more sophisticated, we know that he is not human and divine somehow mixed up, but as fully human as we are, and as fully divine as the Father is. The catch is that, even though we know it, we find it hard to handle both together at the same time. We tend to focus either on his humanness at the expense of his divineness, or his divineness at the expense of his humanness. If we are going to do that, I would suggest that we stick more with the humanness — because we know what it means to be human but we have no idea what it is like to be divine. Certainly, whatever we do, let us not make a caricature of his humanness.

I fear, for example, that we have trouble imagining how we was as a young lad. The apocryphal Gospels don’t help us with their would-be edifying legends, that seemed to make Jesus insufferably pious. He was fully human, like all young boys. We do believe that he didn’t sin. But how old does any young lad need to be before he can freely and thoughtfully commit a deliberate sin — grave matter, full knowledge and full consent? Can we imagine the young Jesus climbing the tree in his back yard, and shouting out, “Look at me, mum!”? What used to make him laugh? When he was in grade two, did he ever have a harmless crush on some similarly innocent young girl? Did he ever say “Sorry!” to his mother or his father?

If we can’t comfortably handle the fully-humanness of the young Jesus, how do we cope with the adult Jesus? Do we de-humanise him to protect his divinity? We are [innocent enough] heretics if we do, but heretics nevertheless. Jesus was as fully human as he was fully divine. Let him be human, and let us respect him deeply because of his divinity — both at the same time, if we can manage it!

That, after all, is why and what we celebrate at Christmas.