All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth!

December 27, 2024 at 8:15 p.m.

Christmas & Holy Family

I just got back from the dentist. (No, not the elf-dentist from the Rudolph Christmas special). My mouth is still pretty numb actually. It’s pretty impressive how they can do that – I wasn’t even sure where we were in the process while the dentist was working away, and then all of a sudden we were done. But I should probably wait a little longer before trying to eat something, so I don’t bite my check with my souped-up chompers.

I bet you’re wondering how I’m going to tie that into Christmas any further than the elf-dentist reference. But really it’s a great illustration for where a lot of us find ourselves this Christmas Season in the Church – we’ve become desensitized to the reality of what we celebrate. We’re numb to it. We’d put God becoming man right alongside gingerbread houses and Santa hats if we had to make a list of “things related to Christmas”, and it probably wouldn’t even be the first thing to come to mind. We might look at our calendars for the week and see “Monday – dentist, Tuesday – clean the house, Wednesday – celebrate the creator of the Universe taking on our human nature to save us, Thursday – do some gift returns, Friday – start thinking about some spring projects and summer vacation plans.”

I think I’ve made the point (and I’m saying this to myself in the mirror too by the way). So where do we go from here? What does Christmas really mean for us in our daily lives? Well there are a lot of aspects of it we could reflect on, but let’s consider the Incarnation. The Word made Flesh. God became one of us in a tangible, physical way. He didn’t appear on earth as a floating spirit with some insightful things to pass along about how we should best live our lives. He is fully God but also fully man. So how can we live out an incarnational faith? How do we not treat it simply as a set of intellectual beliefs, or a feeling we get occasionally when we go on a retreat weekend and think about how much God loves us?

Here are two tips for starters. First, the Sacraments. Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. Jesus wanted to give us grace in a tangible, physical way. In the Sacraments we have visible signs of invisible realities of that grace. So make frequent use of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation/Confession. You can’t get any closer to God than that. Haven’t been to Confession in a while? Now’s the time. Sunday Mass not a part of your weekly routine? I can’t think of a better “New Year’s resolution” than deciding you’ll get there every week no matter what this coming year. Jesus made our faith something to be lived out “in the flesh”, so let’s take him up on that generous offer of himself and his grace to us.

Next, think about how you can be Christ to others, and how others can be Christ to you. Christians are meant to live life together. We rejoice together, we mourn together, we support one another, we encourage one another. We’re called to live this out in community. So think about who in your life could use the presence of Jesus in their lives, and go be with them. Go serve them in some way. Go celebrate with them. Whatever is it, Jesus wants to love others in a concrete way through you.

This Christmas season and as we head into this new year, let’s look at Jesus’ example to us of incarnate love, not just snapping his spiritual fingers from heaven to forgive sins, to heal, to provide, but “snapping” his incarnate fingers here on earth through the hands of the priest, and through our hands in charitable works. Then the world might look at us and see that there’s something different about this faith we have that’s based in the Incarnation of God. God is not far. God is near. Emmanuel. God, with us.