“a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”

Why was Jesus born? This should be the main question for us as mere mortal men and women. Why would God Himself come into this world, let alone come like one of us, and experience all the things we do except for sin? The reason can be summed up in four parts: to reconcile us, to show us what love is, to model holiness, and for us to partake within the divine nature.
 
Reconcile Us
 
Through the whole course of human history with God, we have failed on our end, starting with our first parents. Through Adam and Eve, we lost eternal salvation and were separated from God. God tried time and time again through various covenants to try and reconcile us with Him, but we kept breaking the covenants. It was not until Jesus came to establish the final and everlasting covenant that we were finally reconciled. It is true that the Holy Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday) are the most important dates in the Church because that is when we are reconciled with God. But we also remember the second most important date in the Church today on Christmas when God entered this world to bring us back to Him.
 
Show us what love is
 
To love is to be vulnerable, and how much more vulnerable could God be than to become flesh as a tiny infant. “I think God must have said to Himself: Man does not love Me because he does not see Me; I will show Myself to him and thus make him love Me. God’s love for man was very great, and had been great from all eternity, but this love had not yet become visible... Then, it really appeared; the Son of God let Himself be seen as a tiny Babe in a stable, lying on a little straw.” [1] We cannot offer anything that God does not already give us, except for sin. We cannot add to God’s holiness, and yet He not only allows us to come to Him. He wants us to come to Him, not to condemn us, but to show mercy. “Then what urges You to such mercy? Love-for You have no obligation toward us and no need of us...No one but Yourself, O Fire of Love! Love alone has always urged You, and love still urges You!”
 
Model Holiness
 
What is holiness? Holiness comes down to two things. It is inherent because we are created by God and in His image. Second, holiness is when we put ourselves at the service of God. We can see that someone is “holy” because they put their life at the feet of God and God blesses them by making it easier to live for Him. [2] He also permits people to “appear” to be more holy than what they are. Their actions lie about what their intentions are. Jesus is the perfect example of holiness because He is God Himself and perfectly lived out the will of the Father. Jesus put completely and fully put Himself at the service of God. Those that have imitated Christ imitate holiness and are now saints. Although they may have been made fun of or ridiculed for striving for holiness, they did not let that stop them, nor should we. As St. Paul says in the second reading at Midnight Mass to Titus, “let no one look down upon you.” [3]
 
Partakers within the Divine Nature
 
How do we partake in the Divine Nature? It is through Jesus Christ that we can partake in the Divine Nature of God here on earth. Because Jesus was born in this world and was fully human and fully divine, we have the Sacraments, the Church, and Salvation. We do not become divine ourselves, because we are not God, but we can have God come into us and make us holy. Think of us as a poker in a fire. As the poker continues to stay in the fire, it can get very hot. It can even start to glow red like the fire because it is partaking in the fire’s nature. However, the poker has no heat or light of its own. It is only through the fire that the poker has heat and light. We as creatures of God have no ownership of Godhood within us, but we partake in it because of God. God loved us so much that He wanted to bring and share His fire and light our souls. “O abyss of charity! You have so closely bound Yourself to Your creatures that it seems that You cannot live without them! ...You have deigned to unite Yourself to our bitterness; You, brilliance, with our darkness; You, wisdom, with our stupidity; You, life, with death; You, who are infinite, with us who are finite!” (St. Catherine of Siena) As stated earlier, we partake in God’s Divine Nature through the Sacraments. When we are baptized and confirmed, we are claimed by God and lay claim to His divine assistance; His nature to help us. In the sacrament of Reconciliation, we partake in God’s Divine Nature when He forgives our sins. We continue to share in God’s Divine Nature every time we go to Mass when we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. During the preparation for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the priest pours a tiny bit of water into the wine. While he does this, he silently prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Lastly, we have hope that our eternal souls can be in heaven to partake in God’s Divine Nature for all eternity.

[1] St. Alphonsus
[2] Modern Catholic Dictionary pg. 251
[3] Titus 2:15