Christmas Year C

[cappie]

 
 

Christmas is not an event, not a holiday. not a church service, not a set of familiar carols or decorations or a jolly man in a red suit with eight tiny reindeer. It is not an occasion or a party or a festival. It is not a piece of history or time off work or a gathering with family. All of these things are connected to Christmas, but fundamentally, Christmas is not an event.

Christmas is a choice.

Mary didn’t have a choice about being on the road when she went into labour. Joseph had to register for the census and that meant traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Joseph didn’t have a choice about the fact that this child was not biologically his own. It was a done deal by the time he found out about it. Neither of them had a choice about the fact that Jesus would be born in a stable. There was no room at the inn, so it was either the barn or a ditch by the side of the road. They were made vulnerable by their circumstances: vulnerable to gossip about Jesus’ parentage, vulnerable to physical pain and danger in Mary’s case, vulnerable to a feeling of failing to provide for his family in Joseph’s case.

The shepherds didn’t have a choice about being out in the fields with their sheep in the dark and the cold. The sheep needed tending and guarding, and the sheep were the shepherds’ livelihood, their means of economic survival. The shepherds were vulnerable to the weather and the terrain. They also didn’t have a choice about the visiting angels. The heavenly host descended on them out of nowhere, and suddenly Glorias were filling the air.  

 And so, we come to Christmas.   God comes   our insane world and says to us, “Do you want me? Will you allow me to be born among you? Will you accept this tiny infant as your saviour and your friend and your hope?”

And we’re free to say no. Because underneath that choice is another choice, and that is the true choice of Christmas.

We have to choose to be vulnerable to joy. Vulnerable to joy? That doesn’t seem to be much of a choice. Who doesn’t want to experience joy?

Well, it’s more complicated than that. Despair and cynicism  are actually the paths of least resistance. When something offends us or frightens us, the easiest response is to lash out in anger and self-defence. And with the difficult situations in our lives compounded by the conflicts in our society, our walls are very, very high right now. We will not be caught defenceless. We will not be left unaware. We will not be caught off guard, made to look foolish. 

And how does God answer our minds and hearts and communities bristling with self-defence?

God gives God himself  to us in the most vulnerable form possible: a fragile human baby. 

And how could we respond with anything but joy?

Joy is surprisingly difficult. We hedge our joy. We celebrate and give thanks, but in the back of our minds, there is the knowledge that this goodness could be lost in a moment. We hedge our joy, unwilling to let go those last shreds of defence,  

True joy requires vulnerability, lay aside our power and control, in order to even see the infant Christ in each other, much less kneel and adore him.

But the choice of Christmas that we make is in answer to the choice that God made, the choice to come to us fragile, undefended, vulnerable, utterly reliant on us humans for his survival in the world. And God took joy in giving Godself to us in this way. So, if we can take the same risk that God did, we can feel the same joy God feels. Light meets light, joy touches joy, and the darkness itself bows in awe at the radiance that shines out of the fragile infant Christ.

And what happens when we stop trying to be right all the time,  in control all the time? What happens when we let the light radiating from that small face in the manger penetrate our hearts?

 The joy is deeper than happiness or celebration or exuberance.  Joy remakes us, tears down our  fearful identities and gives birth to a self that is trusting, patient, believing, knowing that all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Joy is the reward of the long-nurtured faith that got us here, a quiet and lasting foundation that endures while the currents of happiness and grief wash back and forth over the surface of our hearts.

Joy is the quiet, breaths of the sleeping baby in the manger as we look on. The joy of Christ becomes our own breath, and if we surrender this far to grace, we could no more choose not to live in him than we could choose not to breathe.

That is what awaits us behind the choice of Christmas. That is what being vulnerable to joy feels like. That is what joy can do to us if we let it—if we have the courage to let go into the miracle.

It’s all up to us. What choice will you make?