Charged with the Grandeur of God

 

Seeing how Christmas daylight dispel the darkness

12/25/2025

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. 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. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God. 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.

I have to confess that around this time of year I suffer from some seasonal depression. I feel kind of sad, emotionally and physically tired, and I get a little grumpy. Does this happen to you? And the culprit is the climate: the decrease in daylight. Have you noticed how at the summer solstice around June 21 every year, the night time spreads longer and longer until the winter solstice around December 21, when we have the longest nighttime, and the shortest daytime. That’s what I feel really down in the dumps.

But then right around Christmas, I start feeling a change, because the daylight starts fighting back. How so? Well, the daylight increases minute by minute until the summer solstice when we experience the longest day and the shortest night. At the height of summer I feel the happiest. You see, even the cosmos conspires to tell the Christian story: Christ the Light defeats the darkness. Gerard Manley Hopkins put Christ’s victory poetically: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

In the gospel today John the Evangelist uses light and darkness to express his feelings about faith. In his profound Prologue, he describes Jesus as the Light of the world, and states boldly: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” In other words, while the Christian story is played out in the heavens above between daylight and dark, the real story is enacted on earth between Jesus, the Light, and the devil, the Prince of darkness. The coming of Christ at Christmas overcomes the deepest darkness in the heavens and on the earth.

In 2014 Scott Hahn wrote a book about Christmas called: “Joy to the World”. He relates the story about his family taking a pilgrimage to Bethlehem. After a long and boring wait to see the exact spot where Jesus was born, Hahn writes: “I told Hannah (his teenage daughter) it could be an hour’s wait till all our people made it through.

“She sighed a deep teenaged sigh, expressing boredom that approached despair.” By the way, has anyone here heard that “deep teenaged sign, expressing boredom that approaches despair”? You probably heard it in the back seat driving to Mass tonight. But their next stop was an orphanage. Hahn continued:

“Hannah was giddy and practically ecstatic, to be around children instead of monuments. The staff led her to a chair and asked if she would like to hold babies. Hannah gave an eager yes. She cradled the tiny boy in her arms and leaned her face down toward his. Her voice rose an octave as she lavished endearments on him.”

Then Hahn gives this spiritual interpretation of that scene: “As I watched Hannah, radiant in that chair in Bethlehem, I thought of another teenage girl. She, too, had come to this town from far away. Her eighty-mile journey by donkey surely took longer than our non-stop flight from New York. She arrived under circumstances that were less than ideal. She surely had to wait in line and deal with crowds.

“Yet that young woman long centuries ago found fulfillment in Bethlehem – in a baby placed in her arms.” In other words, Hannah, like Mary, overcame the darkness of her adolescent ennui as she peered into the bright eyes of a baby boy cradled in her arms. John the Evangelist was right: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

My friends, we all suffer from seasonal depression, during some “season” of our lives as the Protestants say. Maybe it’s the season of adolescent depression that makes us uncomfortable in our own skin. Perhaps it’s a woman’s season of post-partum depression after the birth of a baby. It could be a man’s season of a mid-life crisis depression, making him want to change his life and change his wife. And finally we all face the depressing season of old age. One friend of mine warns me: “Fr. John, getting old ain’t for sissies!”

Well, let me invite you to enter this church today like Hannah entered that orphanage, and Mary entered Bethlehem. Why? Because there is a Baby here that needs you to hold Him in your arms and cradle him in your heart. But of course, it’s not he who needs you; rather, it’s you who need him. You and I need the Light of the world to scatter the darkness of our seasonal depressions. And that is why this Christmas story has to be retold every year in the heavens above and on earth below.

C. S. Lewis used light and darkness to express his faith, saying memorably: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” Lewis perfectly captures the meaning of Christmas: the Son of God is born and his Light scatters the darkness. At Christmas, “the world is suddenly charged with the grandeur of God.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!