Christmas 2025

My dear friends, 

We missed the Blessing of the Bambinelli this year because of weather. I made the decision myself when I heard that the winter weather would be oppressive. Still, it was sad Saturday afternoon to walk past St. Mary’s Park, see the tree ready to be lit, know that one of you had donated that tree from your own farm, and then to see the gates to the park closed and locked with the hasp covered with the first bit of sleet and ice. A long piece of blue tape slashed across the front of the event banner bearing the word CANCELED. Then the note above – “Canceled due to winter weather.” I sighed when I saw it to realize that I would be spending the evening watching the slush accumulate rather than being able to greet you and enjoy the warmth of Christmas carols and hot chocolate. But we’re all subject to the weather, aren’t we. 

And that’s the beginning of my Christmas meditation this year. You and I are subject to many forces: the weather, illness, gravity, the need for rest, misunderstanding, and so much more. It’s part of our nature. We have no choice but to accept limitations as they come. But what if we did have a choice? Would we choose to subject ourselves nonetheless or would we prefer to be beyond reach, untouchable, like gods? 

We do not have the choice. But the Word of God, through whom all things were made, makes that choice for love of us. Not subject to weather, chill, illness, despair, unfair treatment, rejection, temptation, or any of the other forces that impinge on our lives, the Divine Word chooses to take all of that to himself along with our human nature. He, who is without limitation, voluntarily enters a world in which his plans will be canceled, his teaching will be rejected, his love will be spurned with a lash, his offer of friendship met with betrayal. As an infant he will be needled by rough straw, chilled by the breeze, and bound tightly in swaddling clothes.  As an adult he will be bound and led to a death he would prefer would pass him by and experience gravity forcing his asphyxiation. Creator and master of the universe, he subjects himself to the vagaries of the fallen world, joining His life to ours, to be our Savior. He does this from the purest of all motivations – selfless love. 

The Lord Jesus chooses to be subject to all of this and testifies that the creation we come to know, the life we live, the graces we receive, the relationships we can cultivate, the love we share, even the struggles and losses that tempt us to doubt and despair, are not only worth it but open us to redemptive love and the hope for eternal life with God. 

The generosity of the Divine gift staggers the mind. Even the choirs of angels are so overwhelmed by the graciousness of the plan for our salvation that their song breaks, as if spontaneously, into our world and the lives of the shepherds in the field. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased” (Lk 2:14). The angel gives the shepherds a sign and a kind of direction: “you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). Saint John Henry Newman said that this instruction was necessary because no one would ever think of looking among the humble, everyday poor for the King of the Universe. They would expect him in palaces or high places. “They would not be able to fancy that He had become one of themselves, or that they might approach Him; therefore the Angel thus warned them where to find Him, not only as a sign, but as a lesson also” (Sermon 17). 

Likely, you and I sometimes daydream about being someone else, someone better, someone less subject to limitation, someone whose plans never go awry, someone more powerful, less subject to feeling put upon. God chooses instead to become like us and to take what we consider weakness to himself. I’ve heard it said, “God is not God in the way I would be God if I were God. Thank God.” On this Christmas Day, let us give thanks that God does not deem power and imperviousness something to be grasped after, but humbles himself to join the world of canceled plans and unfulfilled longings.  

Merry Christmas everyone! May the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Humility and Joy, be your comfort and your true strength this Christmas and in the coming year. 

+Bishop John Iffert