Divine reunion

Our children are coming home for Christmas. Oliver from Queen’s University in Kingston, Daniel from the University of Colorado and Lucy from her six months touring around New Zealand. Lizzie never left, and the dog and cats are homebodies. So, the Corens unite for the season that commemorates the birth of Christ.

Pretty standard stuff really, but within that delicious image of family reunion is something even grander. The reunion of humanity. God takes human form, becomes a baby, so that He and His creatures — us — will be as one to start the new covenant. The family comes together, the way it ought to be. In a way this is the very essence of Christmas. The divine reunion.

On another level there is the familial example of the holy clan and the model of parental sacrifice. Joseph who could easily have abandoned his wife to a desperate fate and perhaps execution for supposed adultery, and Mary, who while so young and afraid accepted God’s plan and design with utter grace and humility.