Christmas reminds us God is here for us

Jesus is the ultimate gesture of God’s trust in and love for us, His creatures. Born to a violent, heckling and brutish world as that most vulnerable of all its denizens, a tiny and powerless baby. Born to a young and supremely and superbly innocent young woman, to a fringe, often despised and politically insignificant people. The startling paradox, the sparkling contradiction: in weakness is strength, in anonymity is glory, in human form is divine immortality.

It was probably not in December, it may not have been in a stable, and it was almost certainly a few years before we have been led to believe. It’s not the point at all. What matters is not so much how it occurred, but that it occurred. You’ll find that those who quibble about particulars are searching not for truth but for a way to avoid finding it.

The Puritans of the 17th century thought it sacrilege to “give God a birthday party,” but as in so many things they were missing the point. Christmas is only partly about commemorating the birth of the Messiah. It is also about celebrating that the Word became flesh. It is a feast day, a party for us as well as Him. Rejoice, rejoice, for unto us God has come.

G.K. Chesterton wrote a beautiful piece about how medieval Englishmen believed their farm animals would bow as one at a hidden, precise time on Christmas night to show their reverence for the Son of God. I have no idea whether it is true or not, but it is a chillingly lovely image; how tragic that the same modernist culture that embraces without question every ghoulish fad also chuckles at any ancient tale that boasts God and Jesus and truth.

What we do know is that Christmas symbolizes the world made new again, the rebirth of human hope, the new emergence of every possibility. Light breaks through the darkness, joy shatters sadness, love conquers hate. The promise made so long ago is finally fulfilled. It is in swaddling clothes and is held by its devoted mother and worshipped by kings and philosophers and prophets.

Today the doubters parade their cynicism as though it were original and witty, when it is dated and banal. The commercialization drains our senses, but beware those who would ask you to obsess about this. Commercialism is a false god, but so is anti-commercialism; if we fetishize the refusal to buy and exchange gifts, we fall into the same trap as those who do nothing but buy and exchange gifts. Buying presents and loving God are not mutually exclusive, it is buying instead of worshipping that is the problem.

When I was a child my father, Jewish and not Christian, would drive his taxi cab until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. on Christmas Day morning, so as to be able to take the following day off and spend it with his family. You see, he wasn’t paid when he didn’t work. I would rush into my parents’ room at the crack of dawn because Santa had left me presents, and slightly resented my dad for always being so tired when I shouted, “He’s been, he’s been.”

That has more to do with Jesus Christ than you might imagine. A giving and loving father, not at all appreciated by those who should understand him most and first. It probably hurt dad a little, so imagine how God must feel when we take Him for granted, disregard His Son, ignore His laws, argue about how difficult it is to follow Him and leave His Church when matters don’t go exactly as we want.

Christmas is the great reminder. I am here for you, destined to live and then die for you, to rise again, to return to my Father in heaven, to lead you on the way back to eternal life and happiness. Remember my birthday, take a few moments away from the fun and the laughter to consider the quintessence of what it means. Then bow your head, close your eyes and thank and respect He who is all and ever and always. If the farm animals of the Middle Ages could do it, surely we can as well. Have a blessed and faithful Christmas.