A meditation on the Birth of Christ.

Forget the cosy stable scenes. Christ is born into the reality of our often selfish, hurtful and nasty existence

 

Behold the wonder that we celebrate

The eternal and infinite Word from God, from before the origin of our vast cosmos billions of years ago, comes to be joined to human existence.

The great wonder of it.

So gracious and beyond our desiring, indeed even coming when we have not known or thought about it.

But why did He come?

To save us from all or our follies and brokenness and sin?

Ah yes but so much more..

For from the beginning and even before our sinful existence came to be upon the earth, He was already predestined to come and be joined to our flesh, just because of the glory such a union would be, and create a centre for the joyful union of all life that sprang from Him.

His was a Cosmic destiny that unites all that He caused to exist and loved from the beginning.

And to what sort of world did He come?

The one that we know, so broken and unjust, often nasty , selfish and hurtful

So beautiful but spoilt and degraded

Where men and women care not for those different to themselves

Where people lived in hovels while others lived in rich mansions

Where many had little to eat, while others were bloated with food and wine

Where women had less status than men, and had not the same rights as men wished for themselves.

Where people cause cruelty and death against the innocent in war and people were no more than unfortunate victims of others violence and schemes.

Yes He came to a world like ours. The Roman world just as bad as ours.

So do not think of cosy stables, with attendant donkey or cattle

Do not think for happy pictures of shepherds with their little lambs, or sages with strange gifts from afar

Think instead of a baby, wrapped in rags in makeshift cot, in a cellar in the ruins of the rubble of Alleppo

For that is the world into which the most gracious and infinite Word has come and ever comes, and sighs and cries with us

..and tries to raise our gaze to what things can be instead.