In the Shadow of His Cross

For Feasts and Seasons class today, we were asked to have read An Adult Christ at Christmas by Raymond Brown. As a senior coasting to graduation, I read about half of the 50-page essay, not out of lack of interest but dwindling focus and will power. What I did read was fascinating, and this is not of those assignments that will fall by the wayside just because the due date has passed.

The main thrust of the book, or so I'm told by Prof. Johnson, is seeking to keep the Adult Christ--the preaching, healing, Passion and satisfaction-making, Risen Christ--focal in our celebration of Christmas. We've talked in class about the Christological controversies and development of doctrine that shape all of this.

Brown traces the lineage of the Gospel narratives and how they deepen and broaden our understanding of the eminence of Christ. Mark, the first Gospel, makes Baptism into the first big Sonship moment. As the tradition developed and the nature of who Jesus was became better understood and believed, Luke's and Matthew's Gospels included infancy narratives to show that Jesus was Son of God from the start. Then, finally, we get John and His magnificent prologue on Jesus and God and Son from the beginning of everything.

So what do we do with all of this in our modern, commercialized, baby-Jesus-centric Christmas celebration. Or, as Nick asked Prof. Johnson, how do we catechize this message to each other when the creche and Nativity scene are right next to the altar?

The answer was right before us in a painting Prof. Johnson shared with us. The painting was a standardly beautiful depiction of Mary and Joseph bent over the manger with baby Jesus, cherubs floating above in angelic adoration of Christ. The irony of this painting was the answer: the artist had included a crucifix in the shadows on the wall beside the Holy Family.

After chuckling about a crucifix on the wall thirty years before Christ would take up His cross, after laughing off the overt Catholicism of the scene, the answer lies right in front of our noses. Everything about Christmas occurs in the shadow of the cross. Everything comes back to the cross, to the Passion of Christ, to His Resurrection, to the victory over death He wrought for us.

Our celebration of the birth of Jesus--"Today is born our Savior!"--is entirely founded on the whole mystery of Christ--dying, rising, coming again. It all started with birth, but it is a birth that was and is oriented toward the salvation of humanity.

So eat up that irony and remember that everything about Christmas, and everything about our faith and our worship and belief in Jesus, happens in the shadow of the Cross and the light of its God.