Welcoming Emmanuel

THE MONTH of December brings with it the season of Advent and Christmas. It’s always been my favorite time of the year, because it shows us powerfully and practically how our Christian faith entered the world. The incarnation is unique among world religions. The way I like to say it: In Christ, God hits the streets. Christmas gives Christians the annual opportunity to remember the incarnation of God’s love breaking into the world—how it did and how it still can.

Advent is about waiting, and Christmas brings the newborn who announces a new order meant to turn the world upside down—and our lives with it. Christmas always renews my commitment to bring that revolutionary love into a world that so desperately needs it, and into my own life again.

In the bustle of our daily lives, with all of the distractions and struggles that come our way—even in Christian ministries—it is so easy for us to lose sight of the transforming love embodied in the person of Christ. So it’s vitally important that we have this season to remember and re-encounter and re-center ourselves on the heart of our faith: God breaking into history to transform it, and us, in the person of Jesus.

Christmas always reminds me that being a Christian means being a follower of Jesus, willing to allow that message of the reign of God, a new order of things, to break in again and again.

While that statement about following Jesus may seem obvious, how many of us really focus, on a daily basis, on living our lives as Jesus did? On saying what he said, doing what he did, behaving as he behaved? On treating people in the way Jesus treated people?

THAT’S WHY IT was such a profound moment for me and for many of us in the U.S. when Pope Francis visited in September. Francis exemplified Christ-like behavior in so many ways, both large and small, and reminded all Christians—whether Catholic or not—how we are to live our lives and who we are called to follow. While Francis will be the first to admit that he is not perfect—“I am a sinner,” he told an Italian journalist in 2013—he has consistently acted in a way that has drawn the world back to Jesus.

Throughout the pope’s visit to the U.S., I saw the gospel proclaimed at the highest levels of power and prominence—at the White House, Congress, the United Nations, and Madison Square Garden, to name a few. Values that Jesus lived and taught—such as simplicity, humility, compassion, grace, service, love, justice, peace, and care for the poor and for creation itself—were lifted up in public venues where they are too seldom found.

Pope Francis called us again and again to a deeper relationship with Jesus. Christ’s reign is meant to change everything, and Pope Francis reminded us of that. His messages during the U.S. visit focused on the people at the bottom of society, addressing those Jesus calls “the least of these” in Matthew 25. His actions on many visits with the most marginal were even more powerful than his words in the halls of power. After his eloquent and prophetic words to Congress, Francis visited with the homeless at Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. He seemed to love his time with underprivileged school children in Harlem. He embraced prisoners in Philadelphia after he told them about their worth as people made in the image of God.

The core of the pope’s gospel message is about who is really most important and who Jesus calls us to value, encounter, and love. The hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner—this is who Jesus ministered to during his time among us, and he says that the way we treat them is how we treat him.

As we think about the meaning and importance of this Advent season, we should think about the good news that entered the world for those at the bottom of society and how the gospel is intended to change all of our lives. Pope Francis showed both the personal salvation and social transformation that is at the heart of the gospel. In his pilgrimage to our country in September, Francis gave us a glimpse of the reign of God, in which all people are actually treated as beings wonderfully loved by God—which we are.

The visit of Pope Francis began Advent for me. As we prepare in the weeks ahead to celebrate the coming of Christ, let’s each ask ourselves how we might welcome him again into our own hearts, lives, churches, communities, and even nations. And let us be thankful for Francis and all those believers, known and unknown, for showing us the way to welcome Emmanuel, “God with us.”