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[Christmas music] The Three Mysteries of Christmas, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Christmas music] The second scripture reading of the evening is from the Gospel according to John,

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the first chapter, beginning the reading at the verse numbered one. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

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In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John.

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He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light.

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The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name,

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he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Pray with me.

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christmas is a time of candles. And candles, with their light approaching and receding, create shadows.

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And shadows, to me, speak of mystery. Christmas is a time of mystery. Shakespeare says it is the most hallowed and gracious of times. And it is that, but it is, apart from all other times, a time for the mysterious. In the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, the church in which all of our faiths have roots,

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there are three Masses celebrated on Christmas Day. The first Mass is at midnight. And the Mass is built upon the word from Psalm 2, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee."

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The second Mass is at dawn. And the text is from Isaiah chapter 9, "Today light has shined upon us." The third Mass is celebrated at high noon. And it is sung to the words also from Isaiah 9, "For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given."

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Three celebrations on Christmas. One in darkness, one at dawn, and one when the sun is at its zenith. These three celebrations speak to me of the mysteries of Christmas. For there is, first of all, the dark midnight mystery of the Trinity.

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There is, secondly, the dawning mystery of the Incarnation. And there is, thirdly, the brilliant noontime mystery of Christ being born in a human heart. The mystery of salvation. And I would ask you to think with me tonight of these three mysteries of Christmas.

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First, the mystery of the birth of Christ in the Trinity. Of all the words in our language, the most important word is "God." That word is so important that if we do not understand it, to the degree that we do not understand it, all of our other words will be wrong.

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It is a very small word in our language and in most other languages. It's interesting to meditate upon the fact that most of those things which men value most are encompassed in very few letters. Life, love, hope, God. But this word "God," small as it is, is exceedingly difficult to explain.

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Indeed, there are some in the tradition of our faith who believe it is impossible to even begin to explain it, and so, rather than trying to explain it, they lapse into silence or speak of God only in terms of what he is not. There is in the Eastern Orthodox tradition what is called "apophatic theology." It does not speak of God at all, seeing him as too high and lifted up,

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or, if it speaks of him, only in negative terms. But I would like to say that I highly respect and admire this tradition. I certainly esteem it more highly than those who assure us that if there's anything at all that we want to know about God, they will explain it to us.

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Certainly more than those who chop God down so he fits their own theological system. Now, I can see a lot to hold highly in apophasis. Still, I cannot stand with those who hold to an apophatic theology. For the simple fact is that God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ,

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and Jesus has spoken to us of his Father, and has not spoken of his Father only in negative terms. So if we can say nothing else of God the Father, we can at least echo what our Lord Jesus has already said. And one of the things that he said was this, that God is personal. Now, as soon as I say that God is personal, there are those who say that I am limiting the absolute.

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How can the infinite be personal? I would reply to them, "Must infinity by definition be impersonal?" Is it not true that the reason we cannot understand how the absolute can be personal rests in the fact that we are so limited in our own personality?

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Personality is, to our understanding, the very highest form of life. And so when Jesus speaks of his Father God as our Father also, when he speaks of God in such personal terms, certainly this is good and right. We understand that God is more than a person, that he is in fact the universal person,

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and it is out of our understanding of this that we have the doctrine of the Trinity. That he is one God in three persons, not three gods, not some crude policy-ism. So the Trinity is a dark and a midnight mystery, but it begins with this, that God is personal. And that out of the infinite personality of God, out of the riches of God,

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which are so vast and so overflowing that God himself cannot contain himself, so that by his very nature he extends and communicates himself. God the Father looks inward upon himself and his divine intelligence, and he sees himself and penetrates himself with a gaze which wholly embraces himself.

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And just as he sees himself and knows himself utterly, so does he speak of himself completely. And the act whereby he knows himself and the word by which he utters himself, these together constitute the birth of God's Son in eternity, the begetting of the word that was from the beginning.

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The Bible says, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was the expression of the perfection of God by God himself." The Bible says that the word was with God, for it was nothing less than God himself. And the Bible says that the word was God, God uttering himself. And then the Bible says that the word became flesh and dwelt among us,

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which brings us to the second mystery of Christmas, the birth of Christ in death living. For this great God chose in uttering himself to robe himself in flesh, to come to us as a baby and to grow up as a boy and a man. And this says to us two things.

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It says, first of all, how much we are loved by God. Many, when they speak of the mystery of the Incarnation, speak of it in terms of man's sin, of his awfulness, of his ugliness, of his unimaginable need, a need so great that God himself had to come. But I would submit to you that the far greater message of the mystery of the Incarnation is this,

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that God valued man so highly that God saw man to be of such worth that he came. We spend the most on those we love the most. We give the most to those we love the most. We sacrifice the most for those we love the most.

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And God spent and gave and sacrificed for man. Nothing speaks of the glory of man as much as the coming of God in Jesus. When infinite power entered into a woman's womb and went through the insecurities of birth. When the giver of all gifts entered into a life where he knew hunger and thirst.

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When the one who clothed all came as a naked baby in a stall and died as a naked Savior on a cross. His nakedness speaks to us of flesh. And that's the second great message that comes out of the mystery of the Incarnation, that God did not see flesh as an unfit vessel for his Son.

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There are some, you know, who suggest that the body, that the things of the earth, matter, the material, is inferior to the things of the Spirit. But the Christian Church has never so taught. There was one named Arius who said that God was so high and lifted up, so remote,

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that he could have nothing to do with the evils of the world. This was a super-separated God. But the Church rejected the teachings of Arius and took to its heart instead, and has taught in every century since, the words of Athanasius,

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that God became human, that we might become divine. You see, the mystery of the Trinity is not only that God is personal, but that he is also social. And the mystery of the Incarnation testifies to us that God, in uttering himself, uttered himself in flesh at Bethlehem.

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The image of God is humanity. This is why in the Second Commandment, God says, "Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image." Why not? Because man is the image of God. You place a fire in an iron brazier.

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The fire will begin to heat the iron that holds it, just so the Spirit of God will come down into the deeps of the human soul. And there, the sparks and flames of the Spirit of God will ignite the heart and the senses and the will and the desires and the powers, until the whole being is aflame with God.

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Now, the brazier will become hot with the fire, so hot that it itself will burn, and it will glow as the fire glows. Yet the brazier itself is not part of the fire. It instead has been influenced by the fire. So man does not become part of God, but God so moves in and through man

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that divinity is mingled with humanity. I would remind you that at the end of his earthly life, when our Lord ascended to his Father in Heaven, he ascended in his resurrection body.

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We do not know all that that body was, but we do know that he ate, that he could show the wounds in his hands, and the testimony of Scripture is that we will see him as he is and that we will be like him. God has already received a human body into the blessed mystery of the Trinity,

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so that God and man together are on the throne. Which leaves us, of course, with only one question. The dark mystery of the Trinity has been somewhat explained to us in the dawn of the Incarnation, but has this truth found a place in our hearts?

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Is the word God utters of himself at the zenith of our experience? Have we been ignited by the Spirit of God? Is it noonday in our souls? You see, the third mystery of Christmas is the birth of Christ in the human heart. I suppose I could put it most simply like this.

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Do you long to be hugged by God? Do you know that you're already being hugged by him? I speak of hugging because hugging is so important. Bressler at UCLA has pointed out that we all need at least four hugs every day,

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one in the morning, one at lunch, one at dinner, and one before we go to bed. He says that is necessary for physical and mental health. Dr. Harold Falk, who is the chief psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic, says that hugging helps to relieve depression,

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that it builds up the body's immunization defenses, that it breathes life and vitality into the personality, that it makes us younger. Hugging, he says, saves families and homes and hearts.

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And there is concrete scientific evidence that people who are hugged and touched and fondled produce more hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to their brains and to their hearts so that they think and feel beyond other people. Do you feel hugged by God?

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Do you feel in you that which defeats depression, that which builds up your defenses, that which breathes life and vitality into you, that helps you think and feel with everything you are? We all long for that.

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How else do you explain the popularity of a film like E.T.? E.T., more than any other character to appear in an American film in 50 years, is a Christ figure. He comes from out of this world, where he walks the flowers bloom, the little children gather about him.

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With his touch he heals. He longs to return to his heavenly home. He has a sacred heart with feet. He dies, and then in a recreation of the Easter motif, he comes to life again.

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And in the climactic moment when the doors of his tomb that struck are thrown open and the guards fall back, he appears in resurrected glory, his heart beating, robed in white. And he ascends, but before he goes, he says to his disciples, "Not, lo, I am with you always, but I will always be here."

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And people flock by the thousands and the tens of thousands and the hundreds of thousands and the millions and millions and millions to hear the story. And I believe it's because there's a God-shaped hole in every heart. The heart is restless until it rests in that one who comes and cleans it.

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So I ask you very publicly what is in fact a very intimate and personal question. Are you in touch with the eternal? Have you been hugged by God? Or is it for you always winter but never Christmas?

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The two marks of a child of God are that one loves Jesus and that one loves others in the name of Jesus. Is that true of you? Or is it for you always winter but never Christmas?

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If you would know the mystery of salvation, the high noon experience of the faith in the heart, then what you must do is focus upon Jesus as a hunter closes one eye and focuses with the other upon its target. So you must blot out all that would distract and focus your attention upon Him.

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As it is when you seek to solve some difficult problem and you drive out of your consciousness all which detracts you and you focus upon that problem which is yours until something inside of you moves upward and outward

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and thrusts you beyond yourself into that which you're seeking to understand. So focus upon Christ. And so see Him. Kiss Him three times.

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Kiss His feet as an act of repentance. Kiss His hands as an act of commitment. And kiss His lips as an act of unity. I know some are thinking to themselves,

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"Well, I felt I've done that at other Christmases and this is just the same old thing." That's not so. This is a new Christmas. There has never been a Christmas like this before

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because you have never been as you are now before. A year has passed since the last Christmas for you and you are to that degree different. This is a new Christmas for a new you.

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For Peter, Christmas came when the Lord turned and looked upon him. For Paul, Christmas came when on a desert road he said to Christ, "Lord, what would you have me to do?" For the prodigal son, Christmas came when he stood up in a pigsty and said,

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"I will arise and go back to my father." And for the thief on the cross, that hard and brutal man, Christmas came when he turned and said, "Gasp! Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

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For each of these, Christmas came only once, really. But that once was enough. For when Jesus Christ, the perfection of God uttered, is born in the manger of a human heart,

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he never leaves. One Christmas, one real Christmas, is forever. So the three mysteries of Christmas are the three births of Christ. When God reveals himself and his glory in the midnight mystery of the Trinity,

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that happened in eternity. When God reveals himself and his glory in the mystery of the Incarnation, that happened in Bethlehem. And when God reveals himself and his glory

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in the mystery of salvation in a human heart, that can happen tonight and forever. You know, when St. Francis and St. Clair were walking one day through the snow, they came to a fork in the road.

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And as they prepared to part, she knelt and St. Francis blessed her. And then as he turned to go away, she said, "When shall we meet again?" And he replied, "When the roses grow." And then turned and began to walk away.

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But he stopped when he heard her voice. "Francis!" she called him. The voice came out. Crystal clear on that cold, cold day. And when he turned and looked at her,

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there were roses blooming at her feet. And there were roses blooming at his feet. And everywhere they looked, the world was aflame with roses. You see, when Christmas is yours,

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even when the world is full of snow, it's always springtime. Pray with me. O God, the source of all mystery and truth,

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give me a pure heart that I may see you, a humble heart that I may hear you, a loving heart that I may serve you, and a faithful heart that I may remain in you,

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as you remain always in me. Amen.