By Clement Harrold

December 25, 2025

An aspect of the Christmas story we often fail to notice is the way that God, through the Incarnation, became a burden to Mary and Joseph and the people around them.

From Luke’s Gospel we know that Jesus’s parents were not wealthy, yet that didn’t stop God from asking them to have a child sooner than they had anticipated. Nor should we forget how He timed events such that Mary and Joseph would be forced to make the 90-mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem while Mary was heavily pregnant. And when they arrived, as we know, there was no room for them at the inn.

A little while later, and Herod was giving orders that the male infants of Bethlehem and the surrounding region be massacred. In this dark hour, the Christ Child became a burden not only to His parents, but also to all the other grieving families whose heartbreak was occasioned by His birth. We can only imagine how heavy Mary and Joseph’s hearts were as they rose in the middle of the night to pack their bags and anxiously set off on the long walk to Egypt, leaving behind their family, their friends, their people, their home.

All of this could have been avoided, if only God had chosen some other way. Indeed, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for Him to spare His parents from their successive ordeals. Yet that isn’t what He did. In His wisdom, God chose instead to become a burden to the very people whom He loved the most. But not just a burden: for as is often the case in life, what seemed like a weighty burden was also the world’s greatest blessing.

In a Christmas homily, St. Augustine marvels at the divine condescension whereby the God of the universe made Himself dependent on—and vulnerable to—His own human creatures:

The Maker of man became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nourished at the breast; that He, the Bread, might be hungry; that He, the Fountain, might thirst; that He, the Light, might sleep; that He, the Way, might be wearied by the journey; that He, the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses; that He, the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge; that He, Justice, might be condemned by the unjust; that He, Discipline, might be scourged with whips; that He, the Grape, might be crowned with thorns; that He, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross; that Courage might be weakened; that Security might be wounded; that Life might die. (Sermon for the Nativity, 191.1)

Augustine’s words help us to capture a sense of the extreme scandal of the Incarnation, and of the radical inversion of values which that event has brought.

Particularly in our godless society, people find themselves increasingly desperate to escape pain at all costs, and this includes the pain that comes with knowing you are making someone else’s life more difficult.

Along these lines, data from the state of Oregon shows that a full 54% of people who end their lives prematurely through assisted suicide feel like they are a burden on those around them. It’s a tragic statistic, and one which helps underscore the central importance of the Christmas story. This story—this true story—teaches us that God Himself chose to become a helpless, needy baby. For this reason, we need not feel shame or self-reproach when our poor health or difficult circumstances place demands on the people around us.

In fact, the beauty of the Gospel message is that it is precisely those who are poor, sick, lonely, and depressed who have the most to contribute to the salvation of the world. In his moving apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, St. John Paul II drew on St. Paul’s words in Colossians 1:24 (“I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake”) to highlight this crucial point:

A source of joy is found in the overcoming of the sense of the uselessness of suffering, a feeling that is sometimes very strongly rooted in human suffering. This feeling not only consumes the person interiorly, but seems to make him a burden to others. The person feels condemned to receive help and assistance from others, and at the same time seems useless to himself. The discovery of the salvific meaning of suffering in union with Christ transforms this depressing feeling. Faith in sharing in the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person “completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”; the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore he is carrying out an irreplaceable service. (27)

The pope’s words remind us that it is by embracing our burden of suffering that we progressively overcome, in ourselves and in our neighbour, the deeper burden of sin. In so doing, we learn to live out the apostle’s exhortation to “[b]ear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).

Christmas is a time for remembering that the same God who chose to become a burden has relieved us of our own burdens of sin and shame. In doing so, He repeats the divine initiative whereby He freed His people from slavery long ago: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage” (Exod 6:6). In the midst of darkest winter, the Christ Child arrives as a ray of glorious light to smash our idols and liberate us from the dominion of the evil one: “For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, thou hast broken as on the day of Mid′ian” (Isa 9:4).

Our burdens of sorrow and pain are likewise transformed with the advent of the Savior. No longer a mere legacy of sin, suffering now becomes the pathway through which our hearts are conformed ever more closely to His Sacred Heart: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28-29).

The Russian novelist Dostoevsky famously observed that beauty will save the world. This truth is brought home at Christmas, when we are reminded that it is not worldly power and strength which bring peace to men’s hearts, but rather a little baby lying in a manger. In the cold stable in Bethlehem, we realize that the Beauty which saves the world has a name and a face: it is Jesus, the immortal and incarnate beauty, who was born so that we could be free.

Jesus is the Beautiful One who became one of us so that we might become one with God. He is the Divine One who became poor for our sake, so that by His poverty we might become rich (see 2 Cor 8:9). He is the eternal Son of God, veiled in humble flesh, before whom angels adore and demons tremble. He is the Holy One of Israel, the long-expected Messiah, who fulfills the ancient prophecies and brings joy to God’s people. He is the child who rules the nations, the babe who overpowers the strongman, the God who became a burden.

Come, let us adore Him.

Further Reading

Scott Hahn, Joy to the World: How Christ’s Coming Changed Everything (and Still Does) (Image, 2014)

Megan Hjelmstad, Offer It Up: Discovering the Power and Purpose of Redemptive Suffering (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2025)

About Clement Harrold

Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.