Reflection - Christmas

Perhaps you have received some Christmas cards that show a beautiful image of the nativity, a scene presented as a tableaux of angelic choirs, a babe in a manger, Mary and Joseph in clean clothes, humble sweet shepherds with well-scrubbed and properly placed animals, and richly dressed Wise Men with fabulous gifts. That scene may look like a Radio City Music Hall production, but it is not an accurate portrayal of the first Christmas.

To begin with, take the shepherds. They were the dregs of the earth, people who couldn’t find a better job. Many were conniving thieves, and they smelled awful. Mary and Joseph were not physical models of perfection, like Barbie and Ken, but poor peasants of the countryside who wore travel-worn, dusty, dirty clothes. The stable animals were not sanitized, and people had to walk around their droppings. Bethlehem was a scruffy village of no account. And the manger? We are not talking about a nice crib from Babies R Us, but a feeding station for animals. The Magi were wise men of a sort, but not Jews, not people of the prophecies or people of promise; in a word, they were outsiders. In dressing up the nativity story to look like a set designed by Disney, we miss the point of the Incarnation.

And just what is that point? It is that God came into and among human existence with all of its limitations and flaws. Christmas is a potent sign of God’s desire to embrace our brokenness. Jesus is the Word made flesh who dwells among us, among the nasty, untrustworthy people like the shepherds, outsiders like the Magi, the different, the oddball, the out-of-step folks, the poor peasant parents who smell from the journey. And it is no accident that this God was born in a feeding station, because that is why God came into our world and into our lives: to nourish our brokenness, to feed our hungry souls, to be there with us when our lives are stinky. Christmas truly shows us love among the ruins.

And so, Christmas is more than the tiny little crib scene. Christmas is more than Santa and reindeer and gifts and lights and even special customs. For many of us, this has been the most difficult Christmas ever as we deal with covid-19 and face masks and social distancing, unable to attend church celebrations, and not having the usual holiday meal. Between the virus and my heart surgery, I have thought more about death this year and have been asking God to give me more time. But despite all this – or maybe because of all this - Christmas is a time to be aware of how blest we are by God’s saving presence in our lives; to be aware that he whom we call Emmanuel reflects the terrible desire on God’s part to be with us, to be part of our human condition – our losses, our recessions, our shattered dreams, our disappointed and fractured relationships, the illness and deaths we’ve had in the past year, the things that turn us upside down. The Christmas message is that God doesn’t want to leave us alone; he wants to reach out and be in our lives. And it is just not at Christmas that God lives among us. He lives among us all year. Perhaps there have been times – especially this year - when you thought you were beyond his concern, his care, his love. Perhaps there have been times when you have not felt his embrace.

We hear the prophet Isaiah say, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and rejoicing.” If you have been walking in darkness and gloom, let it be cast off today by the light of Christmas. The power of Christmas is to bring us back home – not in the sense of our street address, but home in the sense of who we really are, who we were called to be, a home that reminds us how much we are loved, a home that asks whether we have chosen the right gods. In this most difficult year, the power of Christmas is to bring joy and rejoicing back into our hearts.

Jesus was dependent on Mary and Joseph; he could only go where they took him. Today Jesus is dependent on us; we must carry him in our hearts wherever he wants to go. There are many places to which he may never go unless we take him. There are many hearts he may never touch unless we touch them first. Merry Christmas.

If you have a brief faith reflection on today’s reading that you would like to share, please send it to me at deaconruss@holyspiritunoh.org.