As I’ve aged, I’ve begun to experience Christmas from
another perspective. Out from behind the advertisements and through the haze of
old carols and crèche scenes, I began to see that Christmas is about finding
life where we did not expect life to be. Given our humanity and the times we
live in, we might have mixed feelings that cause us to hesitate about even recognizing,
no less receiving God’s “Yes”, the gift of this feast. Every year of life waxes
and wanes. Every stage of life comes and goes. Every facet of life is born and
then dies. Every good moment becomes a memory. This last year we have lived in
a land of deep darkness. We look at our world and ache to hear some good news
of great joy for all people. Every one of us has experienced some darkness.
Every one of us has longed to hear good news, but it’s hard to hear the angel’s
voice when joy is in such short supply for so many.
I find that hope dims for me, until Christmas comes again.
Then I am called at the deepest, most subconscious, least cognizant level to
begin to hope and live again. Christmas brings me back to the crib of life to
start over: aware of what has gone before, conscious that nothing can last, but
full of hope, even in darkness, that this time, finally, we can learn what it
takes to live well, to grow, to get it right. I find myself drawn to Bethlehem to
see this thing that has taken place and be reminded once again that it’s all
true.
That Jesus’ birth happened at a specific time within a
particular set of circumstances, doesn’t mean his birth is limited to that time
and those circumstances. There is no single Christmas story. There are an
endless Christmas stories, happening all the time. This feast is not only a
celebration of what was. It is also our participation in what is and what might
be. There is a child in each of us waiting to be born again. The Christ Child
beckons to those looking for life, those who refuse to give up, those to whom
life comes new and with purpose each day,
those who can let yesterday go so that life can be full of new
possibility, those in whom Christmas is a celebration of the constancy of
change, a call to begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning.
This Child shows us the reality and truth of our lives.
Today we are invited to move from the fact of Jesus’ birth
to the meaning of his birth in our lives. We can only come to the manger as we
are. We’re invited to come, not as spectators, but as participants in Christ’s
birth. Spectators might see Jesus born in Bethlehem, but participants will
experience God born in themselves. By becoming human, God encourages us to
honor the vulnerability of our humanity and the fragility of our lives. God is
with us in our fears and pain, in our losses, in the cruelty and inhumanity we witness
daily perpetrated by Empire. The world was no different at Jesus’ birth.
Isaiah offered his prophecy and vision of endless peace, the
destruction of the oppressor’s rod, and an end to the trampling boots and
bloody garments of this world. Our sadness, anxiety, and fear for the world,
can leave us shortsighted and unable to see the prophetic vision of Isaiah. We
can feel a sense of dissatisfaction with simply hearing the story instead of our
deep longing to live the story.
The shepherds, the first ones to hear the good news, left
their flocks and went to the manger and in so doing they moved from the event
of Jesus’ birth to the experience of his birth. They offered themselves, their
curiosity and awe, as well as their status as homeless field workers, the outcasts
and despised of their society. The birth that called the shepherds away from
their fields and flocks is also the birth that returned them changed to the same
fields and flocks. They carried the birth of Jesus back within them and made
the Christmas story their own. Today Bethlehem is more than a geographical
location. Today Bethlehem is within us.
Name your hopes and fears, your thanksgivings and
disappointments, the joys and the sorrows of this past year, your desires and
longings. His manger is big enough to receive whatever we might bring. Whatever
we offer today at the manger let it speak the truth of our life. The Christ Child
shows us who we are, who we can become, offering us a new beginning. If Christ
is not born in the real everyday places of our lives, he isn’t born anywhere.
Today is not so much about explaining or analyzing, but about pondering, discovering, treasuring. Allow your wonder and awe to make you attentive. Awe precedes, and is the root, of faith. That’s our Christmas work. Then Christ is born in us and the divine life lives not only in Jesus but in us too. +Amen.
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