The Face-to-Face Nature of Christmas

The day before Christmas is special.

No matter our age, we always get excited for the celebration of Christmas day. There is something about it that brings us back to our childhood. It brings us back to when our lives were much simpler. The only thing that mattered was being with family and celebrating the reality of Christmas. 

Family unites the Christmas experience in a universal manner. The majority of people have plans to be with their family or extended family in some way. The first Christmas was really no different. The Holy Family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus shared the truth of the Incarnation and we are invited to share in that reality each year. 

Taking time to consider what it would have been like to be in Bethlehem on that holy night can radically influence our vision for the celebration of Christmas. We are not simply invited to recall that this was a nice event in history that we can remember with delight. We are not merely asked to be joyful because a baby was born 2,000 years ago.

Pope St. Paul VI once said, “We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.”

With the Incarnation, everything changes. Moving forward, all generations are given the opportunity to radically meet the living God.  With the Incarnation, everything changes. Moving forward, all generations are given the opportunity to radically meet the living God. Tweet This

The word “encounter” literally means “to come upon face-to-face.” The birth of Jesus Christ means that God has a face. We can experience Him as a real, living person who was born in time but who is alive today because of the Resurrection. God desired for us to know Him so intimately and powerfully that He was willing to become a dependent baby in order to gain our love. Nothing would stop Him from getting close to us.

Ultimately, Christmas reveals your worth. For this reason, Pope St. John Paul II once said that “If we celebrate with such solemnity the birth of Jesus, it is to bear witness that every human being [is] somebody unique and unrepeatable…somebody thought of and chosen from eternity, some[one] called and identified by his own name.”

God is born among us, and He has a name. This name highlights His individuality, and this name is an offer of relationship to every single person. God became one of us not to save humanity in general but to save you, personally. We can view this truth in the way that the God-child interacts with people during His public ministry: He calls His disciples by name; He spends time with the sick; and He eats with sinners. In all circumstances, Jesus looks at the other person to reveal that He has come for them in a personal and life altering manner.

The word “encounter” also means “to come upon or experience especially unexpectedly.” God could have come with the power of worldly armies or in nuclear fashion. He could have come with the mighty clouds of Heaven in a divine storm that conquered His enemies. And yet, God comes to us as an infant: poor and dependent on others. Like His mother and foster father, Jesus has nothing.

St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote that the poverty of Mary is the key to viewing Christmas in a profound way. He said, “Arise, all ye nobles and peasants; Mary invites all, rich and poor, just and sinners, to enter the cave of Bethlehem, to adore and to kiss the feet of her new-born Son…Let us enter; let us not be afraid.”

No matter who we are or what we have done, we can gain access to the face of God by looking upon the manger in Bethlehem. This peasant teenager from the middle of nowhere is placed at the center of all of human history. Her fiat, her yes, facilitates the encounter that Pope St. Paul VI spoke about. Through her poverty and radical faith, she delivers the chance for all of us to see God face-to-face in ways that we might never expect. 

So, this Christmas, spend time focusing on the divine encounter between God and man. Pray about the face of this God-child who came just to have a chance to meet you and save you. Then Christmas will be a day that facilitates a meeting between you and the Heart that loved you beyond all imagining.