One of my all-time favorite movies is It’s a Wonderful Life. I watch it every year around Christmas and it never ceases to warm my heart and remind me of the true meaning of this great Feast that we celebrate in the Church today. In the movie, a businessman and father named George Bailey starts to lose hope because he thinks that his business is about to fail. In his mind, this is the final straw, so on Christmas Eve, he goes to a bridge in town thinking about taking his own life. Clarence the angel stops him from doing that by jumping off the bridge himself, inducing George to jump in the water and save him. From then on, Clarence accompanies George through his hometown as God allows him to see what life would have been like if he had never been born. George is haunted by this alternate reality. It helps him to see what a difference one life can make in the lives of so many others. This convinces George that despite all of life’s hardships and his own failure to achieve his plans and dreams, his life is still worth living. He recognizes how wonderfully rich his life truly is: he has a beautiful family and a town full of friends who love him dearly.
George comes back to the place he had been before, the bridge, but now with a simple, but powerful prayer: “Please God, I want to live again. I want to live again!” In the altered reality where he had never been born, it was simply a cold, windy night. But now, it begins to snow again. He is back! George’s friend, Burt the cop, finds him and George realizes he has been given his life back. Then comes my favorite line: “My mouth’s bleeding!” Even though reality is tough, he is so happy just to be alive again.
This story of George’s change of heart is a timeless one that continues to touch our hearts today. If you think about it, that theme of a change of heart is a golden thread running through so many different Christmas films. In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge turns away from the greed in his heart. In How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch leaves behind his hatred because of the love shared by the Whos, and his heart grows three sizes! In Home Alone, Kevin has a change of heart and realizes that he wants his family back. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown leaves behind his sadness of heart and comes to embrace Jesus as the reason to be joyful at Christmas. In Elf, Buddy the elf helps his biological father to abandon the obsession with work that has gripped his heart, in order to focus on loving his family.
We love movies about people coming to a change of heart because it speaks to our own need for change within our hearts. George Bailey, Ebenezer Scrooge, Charlie Brown and all the others remind us of our own desire to leave behind all that makes us worse versions of ourselves.
I don’t think it is any accident that many of our Christmas stories center on a change of heart, because this is precisely the reason Jesus came into our world. We gather today to experience the joy and wonder the shepherds must have felt as they looked into that humble manger in Bethlehem all those years ago. They were the first to see the human face of God with us, this little Child who came to help all of us find salvation, that ultimate change of heart we all long for.
Today’s Gospel reading is taken from the latest Gospel written about the life of Jesus. After Matthew, Mark and Luke had already written their accounts of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the Holy Spirit led John to write about the larger story at work when Jesus was born. He shows us how Jesus is the definitive person in the whole world’s story of salvation.
John takes us all the way back to the beginning of creation–where God, by His almighty power, brought the universe into being from nothing. His words mirror the very first words we hear in the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning.” John speaks of that awesome moment to show us that even there, at the very beginning of creation, God knew what He was doing. God the Father spoke all of creation into being through God the Son. John refers to God the Son as the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.” John shows us how God the Son was active in bringing all things into being. Then, just a few verses later, John shows us how the Son, the Word of God, joined the human family! “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”
Brothers and sisters, this is why we gather in joyful celebration today. We gather to celebrate the day God the Son was born into our human race to save us! As John reminds us: “What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Jesus’ coming among us allows us to have access to the life of God in our hearts. Jesus became one of us so that we could become intimately connected to God Himself! Why? Because without Jesus, our hearts remain enveloped in darkness.
If I am humble and honest with myself, I look within my own heart and can see things I hold onto that twist me up and separate me from God and other people. I think you can, too. Because of our sins, our hearts cry out for a Savior. We are stuck in sin and death without God, so God became one of us to heal the damage caused by sin; to save us from those things that kill us inside: anger, distrust, disobedience, gossip, lust, jealousy, hatred, dishonesty, and all the rest. God the Son became one of us to give us the power within to accomplish that change of heart we all need.
In the first reading, we hear from the prophet Isaiah, who–long before Jesus came–prophesied: “all the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God.” And Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy! He is the Savior who is now known throughout the world! The whole world celebrates Christmas today because it is the day when God the Son was revealed as our Savior.
This little Baby in the manger is the Word through Whom all things were created. He through whom the universe was created has the power to recreate all of us, to bring us to that change of heart we call ‘conversion.’ That Precious Baby in Bethlehem is the Word of God made Flesh, the Light Who shines on the darkness of our sins in order to banish them, so that we can truly live the best version of ourselves in this life and prepare to be with God forever in the life to come.
Today is a day we celebrate each year because it reminds us that God is here for us, that He became one of us to suffer, die and rise again, paying the price for all of our sins in order to save us from them. Today is a day to rejoice because God offers us the healing our hearts long for. All of us, in one way or another, are like George Bailey, Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch and all the others: we are sinners in need of a Savior. And just like them, we can have a change of heart and come to newness of life through the grace of Jesus at work in our hearts.
This is why we gather today and throughout the year as a parish family. We gather to receive Jesus into ourselves in Communion, to feed on Jesus so that with His power we can resist the pull of sin in our lives. We gather to hear the Word of God, which speaks to our hearts about sin, grace and redemption. We go to Confession to welcome the light of Jesus’ grace into our hearts so our sins can be wiped away. And if we look for it, the light of Jesus is available to us in our families, our workplaces, our schools and everywhere we go on our earthly journey. Praise God! He came to be one of us and has never abandoned us. He is still with us right now! This is the reason for our joy today: the Savior has come! So let us trust Him, worship Him, and give our hearts to Him today and every day.
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Son into the world to be our savior. Jesus, thank you for being born today as one of us to save us. Help us to recognize our sins and lean into your grace so that our hearts might be renewed in You. Help us to live by your grace. Holy Spirit, open our Hearts to Jesus’ saving grace so that we can truly experience the joy of this Christmas day. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Amen. +