Deacon Mike Meyer / Monday, December 25, 2023 / Categories: Blog, Homilies God Loves Us! A Homily for Christmas, 2023 As a young boy, Isaac Watts complained to his father that the hymns sung in church were boring. You see, the Psalms were the only songs sung in church at the time in Puritan England, and Isaac was tired of them. His father responded to his complaint with a challenge: “Well then, young man, why don’t you give us something better to sing?” So he did, penning some 600 hymns during his lifetime and becoming known worldwide as the Father of English Hymns. At first, Isaac didn’t want to break completely with the church’s tradition of singing the Psalms, so he developed his lyrics by adding a New Testament perspective to them.[1] He based one of these hymns on Psalm 98, the Psalm we proclaimed together just a few moments ago. Psalm 98 is an exuberant psalm where all people, rivers and mountains, heaven and nature sing joyfully to the Lord. So what are they all so joyful about? Let’s see if our readings can help us figure it out. Both our first reading from Isaiah and Psalm 98 celebrate in anticipation of a divine king, one who will cast out their enemies, comfort them, and rule the world in truth and grace. Our Gospel tells us who that is: Jesus Christ—God’s Word made flesh. Like the overture to a musical, these opening 18 lines of John’s Gospel play out the major themes of the whole Bible. They tell us that God’s Word, through whom God spoke all creation into being, is God himself. They tell us that this very imprint of the Father, the shining brilliance and greatest revelation of God’s glory, is the life and light of the world. They tell us that through his Word, God himself came to live among us, enlighten us, shine in the darkness of earthly existence, and bestow upon us “grace in place of grace.” What does all this highfalutin church talk mean? It means that God loves us. If our readings tell us anything, they tell us that God loves us. That’s the message of Christmas and all of Scripture in three words: God loves us! You see, God loves us so much that he created this magnificent, beautiful, fascinating world for us to enjoy. God loves us so much that he humbly set aside divine majesty and power to appear to us in diapers, becoming human, just like us, to breathe, sweat, mourn, rejoice, and suffer right here with us. God loves us so much that he gave his only Son, so that all who believe in him will not die but will have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus’ birth reveals a “divine love that . . . enters empathetically into [human] experience, self-identifying with the glory and agony of human life from within, [and] befriending even the godless and the godforsaken.”[2] That’s the kind of love that only God can give, and he gives it to every one of us all the time without limit. Because God loves us, we’re never alone. Because God loves us, we’re never unimportant or insignificant. Because God loves us, we’re never without hope. Now that’s something to be joyful about! But let’s face it, we aren’t always “happy, and peppy, and bursting with love.” Christmas isn’t merry for everyone. People suffer—even on Christmas—and it’s ok not to be jolly every second of the day from Santa’s arrival in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade until the Magi depart on Epiphany. We can’t be happy all the time, but we can be joyful, if we choose to be. You see, joy and happiness aren’t the same thing. Happiness is fleeting. Joy is consistent. Joy persists through sorrow and suffering when happiness eludes us. Why? Because joy comes from God. It’s the eternal peace and satisfaction we feel when we open our hearts to God’s love and share it with others. And there’s our challenge. We need to choose joy, and that means we need to accept the gift of God’s love. Our Gospel passage admits to a sad fact: “The world did not know him . . . his own people did not accept him.” As Archbishop Fulton Sheen describes it: “When finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest lines of all will be: ‘There was no room in the inn.’”[3] Many people today avoid, neglect, or even reject God. They aren’t open to God’s love. Sure, they’re happy from time to time, but they don’t know the joy that sustains us through life’s toughest times. They’re dragged down by a despair they often don’t recognize or understand, a despair that only God’s love can lift. Like any gift, we have to accept God’s love if we want to experience the joy that comes with it. Give yourselves that gift this Christmas. We may feel unworthy; we may be angry with God; we may even question whether God exists. Forget all the reasons you think God shouldn’t love you. God loves you anyway! Accept the wonders of his love, and you’ll sing joyfully to the Lord no matter what your circumstance may be. That’s the message Isaac Watts wanted to convey in the hymn he based on Psalm 98. Watts wrote its lyrics in 1719 and set it to a tune composed by George Frideric Handel. “A timeless [piece] that has brightened our Christmases for nearly 300 years,”[4] it’s the most published Christmas carol in the United States. In my opinion, there’s no better way to express how we feel when we realize how much God loves us than to sing a rousing rendition of Isaac Watts’ timeless tune: Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King. Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-16; John 1: 1-18 [1] Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings my Soul, Book 2 (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 2004), 25. [2] Mary M. McGlone, “The God Who Dwells Among Us,” National Catholic Reporter 60, no. 5 (December 8-21, 2023), 19, citing Elizabeth Johnson. [3] Fulton J. Sheen, “Bishop Sheen Catechism,” Advent & Christmas with Fulton J. Sheen, ed. Judy Bauer (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 2001), 39. [4] Morgan, 25. Watch! God Loves Us! Print 271 Tags:Homily Deacon Mike Meyer Preaching Deacon Michael A. Meyer Christmas Love Please login or register to post comments.