Master·evangeli.net
Today's Gospel + short theological explanation
Bethlehem: "God bends down"
EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)Today, John the Baptist “bends down” before God. It is exactly what the Redeemer does: God dwells up high, but gets closer by bending down. The Creator of the universe is far from us, and so it seems initially. But then, the surprising experience comes: He looks down. By looking down comes His work: it transforms me and the world.
"God bends down": this is a prophetic sentence which acquired a completely new meaning on the night of Bethlehem. The bow of God has taken an unprecedented realism never believed before. He bends down: He comes down as a child, even in the misery of the stable, the symbol of all necessities. The Creator who has everything in His hands, of which we all depend, makes Himself small and in need of the human love. God is in the stable!
—Nothing can be more sublime and bigger than the love that bends down that way. The greatness of God becomes visible when the eyes of the heart open up before the stable of Bethlehem.