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When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child…. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. (Luke 2:15-17, 19)
I can’t let Christmas go. The world moves on, even the church
moves on. But I cannot. I want only to linger at the stable, look at Mary, bask
in the lamp light, stand among the shepherds and hold the child.
Not just for now, but tomorrow and every tomorrow to come
because … standing among them in open-mouthed wonder … I know who I am.
A deep knowing, not of mind but heart, awakens within me as
I watch the scene, waiting for the moment Mary nods at me to pick up the child
and hold him in my arms, as I held my own children, my grandsons, and dozens of
children who broke my heart in places I once travelled to tell their stories.
Holding Jesus, my soul awakens to the truth of my own
being—and the being of every human soul that has … or ever will … draw the sweet
breath of life on this unlikely little planet.
We hold a mystery, every last one of us, and that mystery
is the Christ, the life and love he is within us. Not just in the good or the
faithful, the just or the beautiful, but all of us.
We bear the life I hold in the arms of my heart at the Bethlehem
manger.
The beauty of divine love at the heart of Jesus is our
true identity. It is the soul, the deep heart, we forget or hide or lose or never
knew, sleeping within, hidden beneath layer upon layer of facades, images and
identities we project to the world.
But we are far more wondrous and beautiful than any of
those things. We are embodied temples of the Love who made us, recipients of
the love and life of Christ by virtue of being human, given, freely, gratis, in
our creation in Christ’s image.
Tragically, many go to their grave without ever knowing,
feeling or waking to the truth that the Love Christ is … is their divine DNA, an
eternal loving joy eager to be born to life in them.
This is why I cannot let Christmas go, ever. I don’t want
to forget. I want to feel and be alive with the life God is within me, filled
with hope, brimming with joy and eager to love. So, I hold Christmas as long as
I can.
Singing songs in the night to the Love he is, I imagine
the scene where he is given to the earth and held in Mary’s arms. I stand among
the dumbfounded shepherds, and I reach out to hold the child, eager for any small
stirring of his life to wake in me … that I may feel one with him, one in the
Love he is, warmed by the wonder that this Love lives also in me, hungry to fill
every corner of my being and every moment of my consciousness.
Seasons change; Christmas too soon passes. But like Mary,
I will pray and ponder, holding the Life he is in my heart, knowing the Love
who holds us all.
‘Come, Jesus, glorious heavenly guest, and
keep your Christmas in our breast.’ (Nikolai F.S. Grundtvig)
