Holy Family: Holy Family, Human Family:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

The two great seasons of the Christian year, Easter and Christmas, express the twin aspects of the great mystery of the Incarnation. 

Easter is the narrative of Christ’s divinity, triumphant over death itself. 

Christmas is the narrative of Christ’s humanity, of the coming of the Incarnate Word into the world: the revelation of God as man, living among us. 

All the seasons of the Church impart grace through the revelation of truths of the faith.  

The truth of the Octave of Christmas is that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, has become human to fulfil God’s purposes. 

But what do we mean by human? 

Do we mean that Jesus took on a human appearance but was not, in fact, essentially a man?

Do we understand Jesus to have had an entirely divine nature, where he experienced none of the formative struggles that define real humans?

Or do we understand Jesus to have come into the world, almost as a Pagan deity, fully formed in wisdom, but born by the necessary mechanism of Mary’s body?

None of these statements describes the birth of Christ as the Incarnate Word of God. Because none of these statements describes a person who is truly human. 

Our tradition throws down a gauntlet at Christmas: the necessary but challenging doctrine of the Incarnation, in other words our belief that Jesus is God incarnate, fully human and fully divine, who came into the world to fulfil God’s plan for our Redemption. 

The Incarnation is a difficult, rather than a sentimental concept, notwithstanding the cultural trappings of Christmas with its emphasis on idealised families. 

It is challenging, because it forces us to reconcile two opposing but inextricably related truths. 

Jesus is a man. But Jesus is also one of the indivisible Godhead, the Trinity. 

Jesus’s flesh was not merely smoke and mirrors that concealed his true divinity. Jesus’ flesh was real flesh. 

Jesus had a human soul, human genetic material and human physical limitations and possibilities. 

Like us he suffered, felt physical pain, hunger and fatigue. And like us, Jesus did not emerge from nothing. Jesus had a family. 

And Jesus’ humanity is grounded in the Holy Family itself. 

In the Holy Family, Jesus becomes human by virtue of his being born of a human woman and by virtue of his human relationship with his parents.  

So far from being a mere host, the Blessed Virgin Mary gives her humanity to Jesus: his soul, genetic material and human physicality. 

This is why the Tradition has called the Virgin Mary the Mother of God. 

Not because she is the mother of the Triune God before all ages. Or because she is the author of Christ’s divinity. The truth is in fact the exact reverse. 

From Mary’s body Jesus takes his body, and from her humanity Jesus takes his humanity. 

From Mary begins Jesus’ earthly ministry of redemption. With St Joseph, her husband, is formed the family that raised and provided for our Redeemer. 

This family was the necessary unit within which the infant Jesus, entirely dependent on his mother and St Joseph, was nursed, fed, and taught those essential human skills of language, manual work and, ultimately, adult agency. 

Yes, Jesus had to acquire those skills that would equip him for his earthly ministry, and from those closest to him. 

Because for his soul to be truly that of a man, it could not have possessed unlimited knowledge. 

Rather, it possessed knowledge that Jesus exercised in the historical context in which he found himself.

That is why in Luke 2, it says “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour”. 

Jesus, the man, required maturation and those uniquely human skills imparted by his parents and his community that we need as well. 

Is it in the Holy Family that Jesus was, as it were, formed for his manhood. 

It is within this family that Jesus draws the necessary material and emotional resources to grow to man’s estate. 

We are as humans defined not only by our genetic makeup, but also by our relationships and what knowledge we acquire within our families and communities. 

So it is also for Jesus. 

A fully-formed, independent God man who discarded his family like an old skin may be a trope of Hellenic and Roman mythology, but it is not the economy Christ. 

At its most basic, our human families are an evolutionary necessity. 

We do not emerge as some creatures do, able to walk and fend for ourselves from a young age. We are born entirely helpless. 

Jesus, like us, was born entirely helpless. 

Jesus, like us, depended upon his mother and earthly father to reach adulthood. 

Jesus, perhaps ironically, needed his parents to save him from himself--as all infants do--before he could save us. 

This is why the Holy Family matters. 

Because our redemption depended on God becoming human, and for his humanity Jesus depended on both the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Joseph. 

This is why we continue to talk about the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Church, not merely because in a theological sense she is the Mother of God but because in a very human way she is the mother of Jesus. 

This is why we love and honour St Joseph, the carpenter, who by the message of an angel was compelled to take on himself the task of caring for the infant Jesus and his wife Mary. 

The Tradition has it that the Holy Family is a model of sorts for Christian families. 

Without demurring from the spirit of the Tradition, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. 

Jesus’ mission of redemption was filled with challenges, mess and pain. And the Tradition shows us that the Holy Family had its own challenges. 

Jesus, while being fully human, was also undoubtedly unique and a difficult child to raise, in certain ways, because he was also fully Divine and therefore had a singular destiny. 

There was, in some sense, an inevitable tension between the two indivisible but distinct aspects that make Jesus who he is. 

In Luke, Jesus teaches the elders in the Temple, who wonder at his knowledge. Very fitting for the Son of God. 

But the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Joseph run around Jerusalem for three days, searching frantically for their son. When they eventually find him they are exhausted and anxious. 

In Mark, Jesus’ mother asks for him as he casts out demons and he angrily rebuffs her, saying that his family is not merely his blood family but those who do the will of God. 

Even at Jesus’ presentation in the Temple it is obvious that the Holy Family’s life will be uniquely blessed--and painful. 

Simoen tells Mary:

“This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

The Holy Family experienced difficulties unique to its role in salvation history, and experienced these difficulties from the very beginning. 

But on a more personal level, it experienced pain and heartache common to all families. 

But like all families, it ultimately proved itself to be resilient in the face of catastrophe. 

Think of the episode in John 19, where, in his final moments, Jesus commends the beloved disciple to the care of his mother and his mother to the care of the disciple. 

So as we celebrate this Feast of the Holy Family, I urge you to think of Jesus not only as our Redeemer or as God incarnate, but also as a son, nurtured within a human family, and dependent upon his family as we depend upon ours. 

The Holy Family was the necessary foundation from which Jesus was able to survive to man’s estate, and thus offer himself for us as an eternal and living Sacrifice. 

The challenge for us, in our own lives, is to nurture Christ in our midst spiritually, as Mary and Joseph nurtured him literally. 

We are challenged to imitate the resilience of the Holy Family and its strength in the face of heartache. 

We are asked to  search for Christ as Mary and Joseph did as he preached at the Temple and to stand at the foot of his Cross in Christ’s final hours.  

Our family may be our blood family--or it may be the family of believers to which Jesus gives so much priority in Mark. 

But the Feast of the Holy Family reminds us that it is not just our genetic material that makes us human but our relationships, and our dependence on one another. 

By the same token, it is not just the flesh, marrow and genetic stuff that Jesus takes from Mary that makes him truly human. 

It is the familial and community relationships he depended on that made him a man, and, ultimately, our Redeemer. 

Amen.