Another Christmas Message

How odd of God to lead us down the dark stairway to a rude stable when we had been wishing the great innkeeper of heaven to prepare a place for us in the sky. How dark and backward, this animal shelter, when we had been expecting to see God at the high balconies of heaven. How unglorious, ungodlike.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” saith the Lord.

And because this is God’s inexplicable beckoning down the dark stairway, you have to adjust your eyes to the dimness. You have to swallow your disappointment at the tattered squalor of it. But after the unwelcome liberation, you get new eyes…eyes to see a presence in the desperate places of human struggle, a presence that gives a new meaning to the word holy. Here, at the end of illusion, you learn that, in this life, if you win it all and don’t learn how to love, you have nothing…

And after it all, the angels, with their heavenly authority, disappear, for they belong to the heavenly realm. And the shepherds set off, heaven behind them and an earthly sign before them. But, Lord, what a sign! It’s not even the child, but a child – some child or other, no special child, not a child radiating a light of glory, as the religious painters depicted, but on the contrary: a child that looks as inglorious as possible, wrapped in swaddling clothes. There is nothing elevating about the manger in which it lies, nothing even remotely corresponding to the heavenly glory of the singing angels. There is practically nothing even half worth seeing; the destination of the shepherds’ nightly journey is the most ordinary scene. Indeed, in its poverty, it is decidedly disappointing. It is something entirely human and ordinary, something quite profane, in no way distinguished – except for the fact that this is the promised sign. And it fits.

As the shepherds proceed along this path, from light to darkness, from the extraordinary to the ordinary, from the solitary experience of God to the realm of ordinary human intercourse, from the splendor above to the poverty below, they are given the confirmation they need: the sign fits.

And why does it fit? Because the Lord, the High God, has taken the same path as they have: he has left his glory behind him and gone into the dark world, into a child’s apparent insignificance, into the unfreedom of human restrictions and bonds, into the poverty of the crib. As yet, the shepherds do not know – no one knows – how far down into the darkness this will lead. At all events, it will descend much deeper than anyone else into what is worldly, apparently insignificant and profane, into what is bound, poor, and powerless, so much so that we shall not be able to follow the last stage of his path. A heavy stone will block the way, preventing the others from approaching, while, in utter night, in ultimate loneliness and forsakenness, he descends to his dead human brothers.

It is true, therefore: in order that he shall find God, one is placed on the streets of the world, sent to his manacled and poor brethren, to all who suffer, hunger, and thirst, to all who are naked, sick, and in prison. From henceforth this is his place; he must identify with them all. And this is the great joy that is proclaimed to him today, for it is the same way that God sent a Savior to us…

The child born in Bethlehem was driven by a different power…a power that came from his Father and that would change the world into eternity through his suffering, death, and resurrection. That power is available in each of us, too, as we face the injustices and problems of our lives and our world...

We ourselves may be poor and in bondage, in need of liberation. Yet, at the same time, all of us who have been given a share in the joy of deliverance are sent to be companions of those who are poor and in bondage.

Once and for all, God has started out on his journey toward us. And nothing, until the world’s end, will stop him from coming to us and abiding in us.

Amen.

***The words printed above are not my words. In fact, I do not know to whom to give the credit for them. I simply hope that they fuel some thought and even alter a perspective or two, as they did for me and the other five volunteers serving in India this year.