Where Is Jesus’s Divinity?
WHAT
Good evening!
Last month I graduated with a Masters in Theology. So I thought that tonight I would just read to you my Thesis - it is only 9000 words! Just kidding - I will save you from that agony!
Tonight I would like to make a few reflections about the Incarnation. What is the Incarnation? It is God deciding to become man, like one of us. God becomes a human being in Jesus. It is God taking the likeness of us humans.
Jesus' body is like ours, it grew in a woman's womb, Mary, it needed to grow from an infant to full grown man. He was fed by Mary and Joseph, went to school, and if injured, he would bleed like us. He got sick like we do. His body died, like ours will one day. This is what we call Jesus' s human nature.
So where is the divine nature in Jesus? We know that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Right? Jesus is God. Where is Jesus’s divinity?
To look into Jesus’s divinity let's take a moment and let's place ourselves with the Trinity, the Three Divine Persons and let’s imagine ourselves gazing at humanity across the whole world before Jesus’s birth.
Use your imagination. What do you see and hear? Probably you see men and women of all different sizes, young and old, some busy working, some sleeping. Some rich, some poor. Some on the point of dying and some being born. Some are suffering and some are laughing.
Now let’s zoom-in to see how people are treating one another. Some are loving, some are hating, some are hurting others, some others are helping, some are killing others.
How is this making you feel?
How do you think the three Divine Persons respond to this chaos of joy and suffering?
Remember that you are gazing at humanity with the triune God - Father, Son, Holy Spirit. All three have existed since the beginning of time - and the triune God is pure Love. Nothing else. Love with the capital “L”.
God sees his children on earth in suffering, being lost, in hatred - I can hear the Father, Son and Holy Spirit talking among themselves and saying, let us send Our Love to redeem them.
So this Pure Love, that is God, is sent in Jesus' heart. Jesus is conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb. Jesus takes-on humanity from Mary but his heart is special - Jesus’s heart is fully saturated with the Trinitarian Love. He is human like us but the difference is that His heart is pure Love.
Because of his divine heart, fully saturated with love, as Jesus interacts with others whether they are righteous or sinners, he always wants the good for others. When he meets the blind man, the adulterous women, the cripple, the sinful like Matthew - he brings redemption. No matter his circumstances, his heart, saturated with love, always moves him to will the good of others.
Even on the cross when he is crucified, in the middle of his agony and excruciating pain - he still wants the good of others, to redeem others - Father, forgive them for they did not know what they do.
SO WHAT
Today's gospel tells us that Mary is traveling to visit Elisabeth. Mary is carrying in her womb a human embryo with a heart fully saturated with Love - the Trinitarian pure Love.
The reason why Elisabeth cried out in a loud voice and the baby leaped for joy, is because they were overwhelmed by the radiating love that Mary had in her womb.
Have you noticed that saints are often depicted with Halo on their head?
The halo of course is not visible with our eyes but it is a way to graphically communicate a radiating grace and love that is experienced by the people coming in contact with the saint. Some of you might have experienced an incredible joy that some people radiate. It is attractive, gives peace and joy. When you experience this grace from others you know that the heart of the person in that moment is filled with God’s love.
NOW WHAT
In a few minutes as we prepare for the Liturgy of the Eucharist I will mix the water and wine in the chalice while reciting the following silent prayer:
“By the mystery of water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ as He humbled himself in our humanity.”
Quoting St Athanasius: God becomes man, so that man can become God. This is the essence of the incarnation!
Brother and sisters - our hope is that we come to share in Jesus’s divine heart. That little by little our heart is more and more saturated with the Love of God. Jesus gave us the Sacraments, Confession, His Word, His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. All of that so that our hearts can be transformed in a deeper way to love better the people around us.
On the morning of Christmas rejoice! because we celebrate that the Love of God is not hidden to our senses anymore. God’s Love has become man in Jesus so that we can learn and be redeemed little by little, to Love others as Jesus does.The greater challenge for us is the revolution of the heart. Let us reflect on this as we approach the real presence of Love in the Eucharist.
