COMMENTARY: Christmas is a celebration when the Church seeks to renew in every baptized Catholic the call to go out, to announce, to witness, to share the joy that Jesus has brought into the world.

There are many ways we can approach the nearly inexhaustible mystery of Christmas. 

We can meditate on the divine humility of God’s becoming one of us, on his deliberate choice to become a helpless baby, and to number himself among the poor. 

We can focus on the holiness of those gathered around a manger, especially Mary and Joseph, and on the quiet strength of the domestic church that shelters the baby Savior of the world. 

We can contemplate the holy and silent night, the little town of Bethlehem, the presence of the animals at the manger, and so many of the other elements that poets and hymn writers have beautifully illustrated. 

There is a theme, however, that often remains hidden in plain sight and deserves to be brought into the foreground: Christmas is a feast of mission. It is a celebration when the Church seeks to renew in every baptized Catholic the call to go out, to announce, to witness, to share the joy that Jesus has brought into the world.

Christmas is charged with mission. The first mission is, of course, Jesus’ own, sent by the Father into the world. He is the great emissary and icon begotten of the Father’s love for the human race. 

The second mission is for the angels. Angels are by etymology “messengers,” as we see when the St. Gabriel the Archangel was sent by God to a town of Nazareth at Jesus’ incarnation. On Christmas, the angels descend into the night sky of Bethlehem with an assignment to announce “good news of great joy for all the people,” shaping history with their proclamation. They announce glory to God in the highest and peace to people of goodwill, showing that the first response to the birth of Christ is to share news of it. They proclaim that news in the middle of the night, bursting, it seems, with impatience not to delay declaring what heaven was exploding with anticipation to announce. And they shared it not with ancient movers or shakers — religious and civil leaders, teachers, rich people, influencers — but with simple shepherds, those who were awake at night.

The third mission is for the shepherds. Startled and overwhelmed, they go in haste to follow the angels’ words to the stable. They encounter the divine Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and are transformed. They first announced, to Mary’s and Joseph’s amazement, everything that the angels had previously declared to them about the infant Messiah and Lord. Then they leave their presence, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen — telling it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere! After Our Lady at the Visitation and the angels, these anonymous sheep raisers become the first evangelizers of the incarnate Good Shepherd.

Then come, of course, the Wise Men. Their journey begins in questioning, scrutinizing and longing; it ends in finding the Way, the Truth and the Life. They fall down in self-emptying love and adoration. Their encounter with the newborn King transforms them so deeply that they return home, as St. Matthew says, by another route, something that literally refers to their evasion of Herod’s maleficence but spiritually reveals a new direction for their whole existence. 

They had come to give gold, frankincense and myrrh and ended up giving themselves; and they received something infinitely greater: Their story reveals that when Christ is truly found at the depth at which he wants to be discovered, life cannot continue as before. With “prayer and praising, voices raising, worshipping God on high,” they have since proclaimed to the ages the path of true wisdom. 

The angels, shepherds and Magi are not simply characters in a beloved, truthful narrative. 

They are heralds thereafter, proclaiming God’s glory and peace. They are examples of what the Christmas mystery asks of us — to go out in haste, proclaiming the same good news. 

Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2012 Christmas Mass homily, “It is probably not very often that we make haste for the things of God. God does not feature among the things that require haste. The things of God can wait, we think and say. And yet he is the most important thing, ultimately the one truly important thing.” Every baptized Christian is called to be a messenger like the angels, a witness like the shepherds, a seeker-turned-apostolic disciple like the Magi. Mission is not optional to the life of faith; it is its fullest expression. The Church teaches that evangelization is the full flourishing of our baptismal identity. The liturgical celebration of Christmas is meant to help this identity mature and make the task in response to the gift especially clear and urgent. 

The Child in the manger is not only Emmanuel, God-with-us; he is also the One who sends us out to announce his presence so that others may come into life-changing communion with him, in this world and forever. 

In a 1998 Christmas homily, Pope St. John Paul II underlined that in “the event and mystery of the Incarnation, humanity reached the apex of its calling. God became man in order to give man a share in his own divinity. This is the good news of salvation; this is the message of Christmas!” 

That’s what the Church proclaims on Christmas morning, the mind-blowing truth of admirabile commercium, the “wondrous exchange”: Christ takes on our humanity so that we may participate in his divinity. It’s far more than the birth of a unique Child in a cave two millennia ago; it’s the new birth that the Child born for us wants to give us. 

Sometimes our Christian mission can be particularly challenging to contemporary ears, such as when we proclaim the power and wisdom of the cross. Our Christmas mission is far less jarring. 

Since most are naturally drawn, with joy and wonder, toward newborn babies, it is far easier for people to come toward a newborn King with a manger for a throne than one crowned with thorns on a cruciform one on Golgotha. 

The mystery of Christmas itself rather easily solicits receptivity and generosity: Hearts soften, nostalgia awakens, and even those far from faith find themselves pausing before the crèche, wanting to believe even before they do. Joy feels believable — and hope possible. This season becomes, therefore, one of the Church’s greatest evangelical moments. It is the way God chose to announce himself to the world, after all. 

So as we get ready for Christmas, it’s appropriate for us to ask the Holy Spirit’s help so that we can make the most of its missionary potential. After we go with haste to Bethlehem to adore Jesus with Mary and Joseph, we then are privileged, joyfully, to bring Christ — and the way God-with-us has changed our life — into our conversations and friendships, workplaces and schools, gatherings and traditions. 

We can show that we’re walking by a different route, praising and glorifying God in action, living and not just mouthing the good news of great joy for all the people and the tranquility of order the newborn Prince of Peace has introduced. 

Mission at Christmas was never meant to be something just remembered by the Evangelists Matthew and Luke or sung about by parish choirs. It is a deliberate decision each of us is summoned to make to let Christ radiate through us, just as missionaries throughout the world are seeking to bring this life-changing news to people hearing it for the first time. 

God wants to give us two great and related gifts this Christmas. The first is himself, wrapped not in ribbon and paper, not even in swaddling clothes, but with our very flesh and blood and circumstances. The second is the gift of the invitation, indeed the commission, to continue his mission, for we are just as much a part of it as the figures in the Infancy Narratives.

This article was originally published by NCRegister.