Reflection for Christmas Eve

Wooden carving of Mary and Jesus at Eastern Point Retreat House 

Throughout the season of advent this year I have noticed the contrast between the preparations for holiday festivities and the heaviness of our troubled world. This was in my heart when I read this poem written by Madeleine L’Engle back in 1973

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn -
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn -
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

This is the power of the Christmas story- That even amid our broken world, love enters in. Love takes the risk of birth. Sr. Anne Curtis reminds us that the Nativity story is about “The divine love of God entering the messiness, the painful, suffering, broken and yet beautiful world in which we find ourselves.”

Sometimes we get the impression that to truly celebrate Christmas we must be full of joy and wonder at every moment. If you find yourself having mixed feelings at Christmas, you are right in the midst of the mystery of the Christmas story.

This year as I feel the troubles of the world in my heart, in my body, I remember that that new life always enters the world through struggle and work, through the risk and pain and messiness of childbirth. The peaceful nativity scene comes later -- after the journey to Bethlehem, after Mary carries the child for 9 months, after she labors to bring him into the world. I feel like right now we are laboring to bring new life into the world, to bring love into the world.

In the Christian tradition, the birth of Jesus is God-self coming into the world to be with us, to feel as we do: the shock of cold outside the womb, taking a first breath, feeling with us what it is to live in our messy, breakable human bodies and hearts. Christmas reminds us that the sacred presence is here with us right now, that love is here with us right now. This is why we gather on Christmas eve, to simply notice how love is here with us, right now. 

And so we pause now, in the quiet we make together, as if we were a new mother holding love in our arms, holding the divine in our arms, in our hearts. Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, amazed together that such a thing is possible,