The Nativity in the Flesh of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ – Christmas.
Feast of our Lord. Holy Day of obligation. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated today.
Galatians 4:4-7; Matthew 2:1-12
Read Galatians 4:4-7
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Timing is everything.
That saying acknowledges that the time at which we do a thing in relation to other things is essential to that thing itself. Only God is self-sufficient; everything involving us is interrelated through Him and comes about in relation to other things.
The universe, created by God and coming into its intended life-sustaining balance over long eons, is not a static display but an ongoing culmination of multitudinous events in time that “declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).
Today’s reading zeros in on the intersection of two times: the Incarnation and the time each of us lives at any moment. God the Father could have had His Son be “born of woman” at any time but there was a time that He was moving everything toward which mattered in moving salvation history forward through human agency. God could have had you living at any other time or circumstances as well. Acknowledging the perfection of God’s timing then is key to embracing His timing in our lives now.
God has always had a purpose for us. Using the analogy of ancient Roman inheritance law, St. Paul writes that, in Christ, we too can now enjoy being God’s “sons”, regardless of race, gender, or economic or social status (Galatians 3:28). This is not only an analogy but a reality through the sending of the Holy Spirit into us.
At any given time in our lives, God intends us to live as inheritors of all the He is. Part of the wonder of the Nativity we celebrate today is that, not only was a son/Son born to Mary, we too have been adopted as “sons”.
There is something about any time you find yourself in that is essential to what God is doing in and through you. Discover it.