The healing we need

Joseph went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:5-7)

It’s Mary I notice most of all when I close my eyes to see. So young, a blanket clutched around her shoulders, she trudges her pregnant weight alongside a man, a bit older, staff in hand, along a dusky road, the two of them, alone.

Dark hair framing her face, half-hidden, two fearful eyes peer into the unknown wondering what is next, where they will rest, sleep, huddle against the chill of night.

I have seen her in other faces and refugee places; afraid of what was behind them, they flee into the fear of what lies ahead, hoping for shelter and perhaps … someday … to return home.

That’s how I see Mary. But then the whole scene changes to a lonely place where cries of birth, unheard in the night, bring forth the child, and the light of love beckons me near to see something more.

Mary swaddles the child, warm eyes down, loving the life she labored into the night, wrapping him in new cloth, holding him close as breath, seeing nothing but him. How can it be? He who comes from eternity into time learned love’s first lesson in Mary’s arms, cradled in her heart, the two of them a portrait of the mystery we each are invited to live.

I want only to kneel and savor the warmth of their beauty enveloping my heart. But Mary looks up and extends the child toward my arms that I, too, may hold him.

And just then, Love’s holy nearness floods my eyes as I hold him close, my anxious heart calmed and healed, not by looking on from outside, but as I hold the Love Mary holds, and feel an all-consuming Love filling me whole.

This is the healing all the world needs and for which I so daily hunger, to hold the Love who holds me, to know him within … warming and filling every empty place, chasing out every doubt and fear until my heart knows the beauty in Mary’s arms deigns also to live in me.

This is Christmas, the wonder, the joy of eternity in time. It is the reason we gaze at the beauty of a mother and child … and discover we are not so lost as we feared. Never were. Never will be.

David L. Miller