Michele Kearney's Snuffysmith's Blog: Fr. Bob Warren's Week Reflection: One of a Kind

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Fr. Bob Warren's Week Reflection: One of a Kind

One of A Kind

(Matthew 3:1-12)

Why do we bother to prepare for Christmas? Why make so much of the birth of Christ? More than 20 centuries have come and gone, yet the Christmas custom persists. The Caesars, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, they are all gone, and no one seems to care. Somehow this man Jesus was unique, set apart from all others. One of a kind, without equal in any age, no one has superceded Him, nor has our age outgrown Him.

Despite all efforts to discourage and suppress His worship, belief in Christ keeps popping up like bread dough between the fingers. So we ask, what was different about this man? In what respects does He rise above all the others. By what authority does He receive the veneration of millions? What is the secret of His long-term success. The answer is simply this: He was one of a kind.

In the first place, He was one of a kind in His origin. Your history and mine began at birth, but Jesus made an astounding claim. "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." And the Gospel of John begins with this assertion. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus was one of a kind in this birth. The angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the Child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God."

He was one of a kind in His character. All of us have sinned, as St. Paul says, "We all fall short of God's glory." And just like us, Jesus was tempted, yet He did not give in. He was like us, in all things except sin.

Jesus was one of a kind in His teaching. He was unmatched in content, intensity, originality and authority. We read that when He finished the Sermon on the Mount, the crowds were astonished at His teaching. He taught them as one who had authority, not as the scribes.

He was one of a kind in what He did. Sick people were brought to Him and they went away well. They came to Him with blindness, lameness and leprosy, and they went away with clear eyes, strong legs and pure skin.

Christ was one of a kind in His death. The cause of death was not so much the loss of blood or the arrest of His heart, but the voluntary dismissal of His spirit to God. "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." His was a death for others, so they could live. By His wounds you have been healed. While we all die for ourselves, a few die for others. Christ died for all.

Jesus was one of a kind in His resurrection from the dead. While we honor great men and women by visiting their graves, we honor Christ by celebrating the empty tomb. Each time we gather for worship, we celebrate resurrection. We have been recalling the uniqueness of Christ. He is one of a kind in his origin, birth, character, teaching, miracles, death and resurrection. Be we have not told all the story.

Truth is, you see, not really truth until it is experienced, until it becomes part of us, until it is lived, felt, thought, laughed and cried. Grief, for instance, can be explained, described and analyzed. Its chemistry and psychology laid bare. But until we lose someone we love, we do not know the truth about grief. Love can be explained, described and analyzed. Its chemistry and psychology laid bare. But until we love, until we give ourselves to another, we do not know the truth about love.

The uniqueness of Jesus Christ can similarly be explained, described, analyzed, documented and proved, but until He becomes a part of our experience, we really will not understand His uniqueness. This uniqueness of Jesus Christ is understood by a husband and father who stops drinking, who transforms the money he would spend on drink into food. The uniqueness of Christ is understood by a teenager who passes up some free answers to a math test; by a husband and wife who have decided to give marriage another chance; by a business man who has found a larger purpose in life than climbing another rung on the corporate ladder. The uniqueness of Christ is understood by a busy mother whose fifteen minutes a day in prayer and meditation give her the strength and stamina to carry on without being ill-tempered and by a twenty-five year old cancer victim who comforts those who have come to comfort her.

Millions of people rich and poor, male and female, young and old, millions have found Jesus to be one of a kind. They have found that He supplies a moral rudder in today's confusing sea of conflicting ideologies. This is what Advent hopes to accomplish... to take Jesus out of the catechism, out of theology, out of the tabernacle, and have Him touch you, have you touch Him. He is, indeed, here all around you, deep inside you, but that is simply not enough. He became all that you are, hid the glory that was His as God that you might experience Him somewhat as you experience the man or woman dearest to you in all the world.

That, my friends, is Christmas. When Christ is born for you, not a baby cuddled in the straw, but as a living God Man, the risen Christ held in your mind and heart. And this is Advent, whatever the season. When you strain and sweat to make a Living Christ come alive in your life. When you look at life the way He looks at Life. Blessed are the poor in spirit and the pure in heart... blessed are the meek... and the merciful... blessed are they who thirst for righteousness and make peace. When you love the way He loved, love one another as I have loved you, a love without condition or restriction, for the just and the unjust, the likable and the unlovable. The Lord is coming, prepare a path for Him in your life. Others can point the way, but only Jesus, the Child who was born in straw, can say, "I am the way, the truth and the life."