On December 8, the last of the Mercury Seven astronauts, John Glenn, passed away. When he circled the earth in 1962, we were captivated by the emerging potential of space travel. His death brings back memories of our country’s initial space endeavors: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Of those missions, one stands out for me.
On Christmas Eve, 1968, millions of people around the world, by means of television, traveled with the Apollo team on an unforgettable journey around the moon, six months before Neil Armstrong was to land there. We watched in awe as the camera of Apollo 8 scanned the lunar surface, showing us with the incredible details of mountains, craters, canyons and plateaus. We could hardly believe that we were being drawn so closely to such a distant and bleak place. Then over the lunar horizon rose the green and blue of the good earth, which astronaut James Lovell called, “a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.” Then the three astronauts, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anderson, took turns reading from the Book of Genesis.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and God said let there be light… And God saw the light, and that was good.” The astronauts continued to read as we viewed the moon and the earth as if through the eyes of God. As they read, they repeated the phrase, “and God saw it was good” six times. The dry land and the seas… it was good. The grass and the trees yielding fruit… it was good. Every living animal and bird and fish… it was good. Human beings, male and female… you and me… it was good. And when it was all done, God saw that it was very good.
Looking back over the past year, you and I know this isn’t a perfect world, yet still it is very good. What can be so awesome is to think that in the midst of this vast universe, God would even step into our space and time. Yet as both Isaiah and Matthew point out, “Emmanuel, God is with us.”
God cares about you and me. About the children of Aleppo, about the homeless struggling to find a place to keep warm and sleep on a cold wintry night, about the battered spouse coping with a marriage that is falling apart, about the parent who is distraught because a child is hooked on opioids or in bed with a life threatening illness, about the tired employee toiling endless hours to make ends meet. God is very much in touch with our lives, from the cosmic to the intimate, rather we care to believe that or not.
King Ahaz chose not to believe that God cared about him in his time of need so he rejected whatever help Isaiah was offering to save his kingdom. Joseph, on the other hand, although troubled by the situation he found himself in, knew that God cared about him, so instead of dismissing his dream as an overblown fantasy, he trusted that God indeed was living up to his name, Emmanuel. God was with him, despite the scandal that Mary was pregnant out of wedlock.
What about us? Do we feel that God is in touch with us? Too often we want to be in total control of our lives but sooner or later, we discover that isn’t always possible. Accidents, illnesses, circumstances beyond our control always crop up when we least expect them to. Years ago, Woody Allen once said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
As Joseph discovered, the unexpected can easily disrupt our best laid out plans. For him, a child was to be born whom he would name Jesus, which means God saves, because as the angel explained, “he will save his people from their sins.” Unbeknownst to Joseph, the angel’s reference to ‘his people’ would go far beyond the Hebrew world. His people would encompass all of humanity becoming God’s children.
What Joseph did then was trust and so must we. He trusted in God, in Mary and in himself. Because he trusted, the world was changed forever. His example provides a lesson that we cannot overlook. As Paul notes, God sends us into this world with a special message that no one else can deliver. If we don’t share our message, then part of God’s plan goes unfulfilled and some of God’s glory remains unseen. Like Joseph, we should trust in our own goodness, and believe that God is with us too, for God also made us for a special purpose, namely, to proclaim the Christmas message of peace and love in our own unique way.
On that memorable Christmas Eve 44 years ago, we saw the good earth as God sees it, a miracle of life in the midst of a vast lifeless universe. That night, as we often do, we sang the song of the angels, “Glory to the new born king, Peace on Earth and mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled!” On this Christmas Eve, may we truly mean what we sing.
From our earthly perspective, intolerance, prejudice, injustice, bigotry, selfishness, and greed still mar the goodness of God’s creation. We must realize that our dignity as children of God takes precedence over whatever labels and boundaries we devise to limit the inherent goodness of every member of God’s creation.
The coming of Christmas gives each of us the chance to think again about what really matters to us. Then we can pray and dream as Joseph did and imagine the angels also serenading us. Like him, let us not fear. Instead, listen then for the voice that will always echo the message of Christmas: do not be afraid, for God is with you.