For Our reflection prior to the Christmas Festivity.
About 2000 years ago, when our Heavenly Father sent His beloved son to be born of Virgin Mary, what could have been His thoughts and feelings? I believe, God is pleased if we contemplate this aspect so that our thoughts and feelings identify with that of our Heavenly Father. If this happens, will we not celebrate Christmas with the right attitude and with appropriate disposition? To know what were God’s thoughts and feelings, let us list the events prior to and soon after Jesus’s birth. Those events are:
In Heaven
Jesus, who was with His father all along, glorious in heaven, now leaves His father’s very presence, to be born and live in a distant planet.
Reflection: Will not this separation itself make the Father sad?
A self-talk by God
I feel sad. I willed that my son, at the age of 33 years be tortured, be subjected to a shameful and a very painful death, for the forgiveness of offences that are committed against me. When my son experiences pain, I also experience pain (Reference for us – Jn 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”). Those who accept my son, accepts me and enter into my joy. (Refer Mt. 14:21 indirect reference for us) This thought consoles me and my sorrow is less.
On Earth
1. God watches the events as they unfold, beginning with Joseph’s search for a suitable Inn for Mary’s delivery. He sees that they feel stressed, as no inn is available to them and Mary’s time is nearing. Finally, a cattle shed with no facility, not fit for a human birth, is what the Creator’s son and the child’s mother could get.
Reflection: Joseph & Mary feel sad and is confused. God feels sad for them
2. A) God chose a nation and prepared His people to receive the God incarnate. The civic ruler king Herod instead of being jubilant and be a member of God’s chosen people, feels threatened and decides to kill the child.
Reflection: Contemplate the Father’s pain.
2. B )God sees Herod’s cruel decision and acts quickly. Joseph is asked to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Infant Jesus. The journey, a long arduous one.
Reflection: Contemplate the hardship and pain Joseph and Mary went through. So also the Baby Jesus. What anguish for the Father!
3. Mass infanticide follows (refer Mathew 2, 16- 18). “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more”.
Reflection: God weeps with those parents.
When we celebrate Christmas, let us be aware of our heavenly Father’s thoughts and feelings. Let our focus be on spiritual celebration, so that we find favour with God and comply with the message Angels gave us on the first Christmas night (refer Lk 2:14)
“Glory to God in the highest, Heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours”
Reflection: How do we find favour with God?
Can God feel sad?
Refer Acts 9: 4-7 – “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” If Jesus did not feel the persecution, I think the expected statement from Jesus would have been “… why do you persecute my people or why do you persecute my brothers & sisters”.
The God who is ‘Offended by sin’, ‘slow to anger and rich in mercy’ must surely therefore feel pain when His own son (despite His will and knowledge) suffers and when others also suffer for the sake of the Gospel.
“God Weeps”
About 2 years ago, the Print Media reported, Pope Francis having said to the bishops at a Seminary in Philadelphia on a Sunday of his first visit to the United States that “God weeps for sexual abuse of children”. This information is submitted here only as a proof that God can feel the pain.
Marceline Rebello