Christmas is preeminently a feast of joy. In the radiant faces of children and the expectant sparkle of their eyes, in the exchange of gifts and greetings, in the sounds of Christmas music, we catch a glimpse of humanity’s deepest longings for joy, peace, sharing, unity, love, and celebration.
Christmas is an invitation to us to seek the fulfillment of our desires through Christ Who became man, lived among us, and embraced us with His love. The message of Christmas is full of hope: Christ is Emmanuel, God with us! Rejoice! Heaven and earth are united! We do not have to search for a Savior high on a mountain or in the deep sea. Christ has fully united Himself with our human nature. In the words of St. John the Evangelist: “The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw His glory! . . . Out of the fullness of His grace He has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another.” (John 1:14,16)
Christmas is not merely a promise but already a fulfillment because Christ, God’s priceless gift to us, is already given! We have the assurance that Christ lives and embraces us with His love here and now. All we need to do is to receive his gift by Faith, an open heart and obedience under the Lordship of Christ. Without accepting the call of Christ, without receiving the loving forgiveness of the One Who was crucified for us, Christmas remains an unfulfilled dream. Only as the risen Christ is born in our hearts, as we die to our old ways and become new by His grace, can we truly experience the magnitude of the meaning of Christmas, the joyful festival of God’s personal presence in our midst.
On Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Son of God Who came to invite us to be His friends and to make us all sons and daughters of the living God. By virtue of His divine sonship, Christ has the power to confer upon us adoption – spiritual sonship. To whoever receives Him and believes in Him, Christ gives the right to become God’s child. We become God’s children not by natural means, for God Himself is our Father. (John 1:12-13)
All people are precious to God as His beloved creatures, but only those are adopted sons and daughters who believe in Christ and have received the Holy Spirit. “Those who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and God’s daughters . . . the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God ‘Father! My Father!’ God’s Spirit joins Himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children.” (Romans 8:14-16)
The highest honor that one can be granted on this earth is adoption through Christ in whom we are baptized and clothed. During the Christmas Liturgy we sing “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Through this privilege, Christians have Christ both as their Lord as well as their brother and friend. So “we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for Him; for if we share Christ’s sufferings, we will also share His glory.” (Romans 8:17)