Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
I’m pretty sure that I had no idea what she was talking about, but I fell in love with the very words themselves. I loved the sound of the sentence which said, “…the same was in the beginning with God.” What did that mean? And I marveled at what seemed to be the logical conundrum of saying, “...and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
I'm tempted to say that I still have no idea what Miss Ruddy was talking about when she read us that passage, though that's not quite true. I studied philosophy after all. I have some knowledge of the Greek term logos, the word, the organizing principle and creative rational structure of reality. And now I know that ‘the Word’ was no mere word. It was in fact the inner logic of God for a hurting world. I know now that the Word of which Miss Ruddy, or rather of which St. John spoke and which Miss Ruddy read to us, is none other than the eternal Christ whose birth among us in Jesus we celebrate during these festive days. But having said that, I realize I am merely skimming the surface of a mystery that dives deep into the heart of the Christian proclamation and into our own lives and that of all creation.
There is something tremendously mysterious and almost contradictory in the claims of Christmas. And theologians and poets and hymn writers have delighted in exploring and expressing those paradoxes. This is especially, though not exclusively, true of those ancient voices from the Christian East that have emphasized the self-emptying of God, the Almighty, the infinite one into the vulnerable and tender figure of a human child born into our very human and often inhospitable world.
The language of the Byzantine liturgy is redolent with paradoxes that strain to give expression to the wonder of Christ’s gentle coming among us:
“Today, He who holds the whole creation in His hands is born of a virgin, He whose essence none can touch is bound in swaddling-clothes as a mortal man. God who in the beginning fashioned the heavens lies in a manger. He who rained manna on His people in the wilderness is fed on milk from His mother’s breast. The bridegroom of the Church summons the wise men. The Son of the Virgin accepts their gifts. We worship Thy Nativity, O Christ!”
The 20th century Anglican theologian Austin Farrer echoes this theme when he writes:
“…Mary holds her finger out, and a divine hand closes on it. The maker of the world is born a begging child; he begs for milk and does not know that it is milk for which he begs. We will not lift our hands to pull the love of God down to us, but he lifts his hands to pull human compassion down upon his cradle. … and this is how he brings his love to bear on human pride: by weakness not by strength, by need and not by bounty.”
But perhaps no one delighted more in the paradox of the Incarnation, of the mystery of God becoming human, than did the 4th century Syriac poet Ephrem of Edessa. In his eleventh Hymn on the Nativity, Ephrem writes:
“Your mother is a cause for wonder: the Lord entered her and became a servant; He who is the Word entered and became silent within her; thunder entered her and made no sound; there entered the Shepherd of all, and in her he became the Lamb, bleating as he came forth.”
“Your mother’s womb has reversed the roles: the Establisher of all entered in His richness, but came forth poor; the Exalted One entered her, but came forth meek; the Splendrous One entered her, but came forth having put on a lowly hue.”
“The Mighty One entered, and put on insecurity from her womb; the Provisioner of all entered and experienced hunger; He who gives drink to all entered and experienced thirst: naked and stripped there came forth from her He who clothes all.”
This is heady stuff indeed, isn’t it? And worthy of our time and study and reflection. And I love it.
But, but…I also find, particularly this year, that in addition to this theological and poetic reflection, I also need something at once both more tender and simple. I find myself searching for a more childlike, even childish, approach to this great mystery.
This year, more than most, I find myself desiring to ponder the mystery of God's love through gazing at a Nativity scene or creche, whether it be a fine Neapolitan extravaganza worthy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the roughhewn Neo-Byzantine figures that are before our altar or even a mass-produced nativity set like the one I bought at Woolworth’s when I was perhaps 10 years old while the other boys were trading baseball cards.
I find myself longing for the familiarity of Christmas carols, even of the sappiest sort. Living in a monastery, I am shielded from the onslaught of this kind of popular Christmas music that invades our culture sometime in mid-October and disappears magically on December 26. This past week as I was driving home from Kingston, I heard for the first time this year the Little Drummer Boy. I almost had to pull off the road because of the tears. Tears of nostalgia, yes. And perhaps of grief as well for holidays past that shall never be again. But also, and most powerfully, a spontaneous response to the tender vision of the Word Incarnate, the child Jesus, smiling at the little drummer boy…and at me. Such Christmas imagery, as unsophisticated as it is, has power to cut through the most intellectual or rational of minds and open the stony heart.
Many years ago, in this Chapel, I heard our Father Bonnell Spencer preach on Christmas. Bonnie was a man of powerful and provocative intellect, an active and restless man even in his old age, always exploring and developing the theological and practical implications of faith, not to mention Democratic party politics. He wrote many books, led countless retreats, and preached sermon upon sermon in his lifetime. But this particular Christmas Bonnie, speaking as he always did from a messy collection of notes, read—thank God, he didn't sing but read—two verses of his favorite Christmas carol, “O little town of Bethlehem”:
“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin, where meek hearts will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”
“Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child, where misery cries out to thee, Son of the mother mild; where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door, the dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.”
Bonnie and the Chapel fell silent for a good long while. Because when the heart is touched by the loving paradox of God dwelling among us, or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase, when God becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood; when the Infinite One becomes vulnerable and we vulnerable ones are caught up in the infinite and astonishing love and mercy that is the Word made Flesh, the Logos of the universe, the fundamental principle of all being…then the only appropriate, the only available, the only adequate response is silence.
At Christmas Matins we sing this lovely antiphon on the Benedictus: “When all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, your almighty Word, O Lord, leapt down out of your royal throne. Alleluia.”
I long to share in that silence this Christmastide. Many of us do. And in that silence, may the Eternal Word leap down once again from the royal throne into the throne of your heart and mine. And we will know joy and wonder once again, you and me and Miss Ruddy (God rest her soul!) and all the Miss Ruddy’s and Bonnie Spencer’s and little drummer boys who have touched our lives. May we be surprised into silence. For out of silence, the Word is born.
As Philips Brooks so gently reminds us: How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given! Isn’t it, just.
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