The liturgy of Christmas takes us back to that starlit night when Christ was born. The night was especially dark and the weather was especially cold as Mary and Joseph huddled in a cave. It was there that Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, the Word made flesh.
Suddenly, the night sky shone brightly. Angels descended from the heavens announcing glad tidings. “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will!” The poverty of the cave was enriched with divinity. The darkness of night was flooded by light. The silence of the night was pierced by the song of angels.
The first to see this amazing manifestation of God’s glory and to hear the glad tidings were shepherds tending their flock. Scripture tells us, “(I)n that region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people; for on this day in the city of David is born a savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:8-11).
Like the shepherds, we can be filled by the Holy Spirit with a holy fear, with wonder and awe, at the greatness and glory of our God and of his only-begotten Son. Such fear is akin to love. It is wonderment over the depth of God’s care for us. It is wonderment that God would go to such great lengths to save us. It is the wonderment of the Psalms: “Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:5). Holy fear fills us with joyful praise and thanksgiving for the God who is love.
But there is another kind of fear, a fear that borders on despair. It may be prompted by illness, financial hardship, loss of loved ones or mounting problems at work. We may also absorb the fears of the world around us, a world that is often on the brink of conflict and collapse. Pope Francis spoke about this kind of fear in a Sept. 17, 2016, meeting with papal diplomats:
“The world has great fear and spreads it. Often it makes this the key for interpreting history and not infrequently adopts it as a strategy to build a world based on walls and trenches. We too can understand the reasons for fear, but we cannot embrace it. … Fear inhabits the dark of the past, but it has a weakness: it is temporary. The future belongs to the light! The future belongs to Christ!”
The Jubilee of Hope, begun by Pope Francis and continued by Pope Leo XIV, reaches its pinnacle as we make our way through Advent toward the dazzling light of Christmas. It is a sacred moment for us to gather up our fears and anxieties, including those we absorb from the world around us, and entrust them to the Lord of history, the redeemer of the world. It is he who consigns our fears to the past. It is this savior who is our future.
Christ is born for us; God is with us. May the birth of Christ, the light of the world, bring hope in the midst of our fears, peace in the midst of our strife, and light in the midst of our darkness. To Christ, indeed, belongs the future, a future full of hope, and “hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5).
