For most of us Christmas is about giving gifts and being together, and rightfully so.
Because it all began with a God who wanted so much to be together with us, to be one like us, that he gave himself as the first Christmas gift, wrapped unfashionably in swaddling clothes, padded by straw in a humble manger.
And so we sing carols at Christmas to commemorate this amazing thing that happened.
One of them is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”. The second verse goes like this:
“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel”
The song harkens back to a verse out of the Book of Isaiah which goes like this:
“A sign will be given: the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel, a name which means “God-is-with-us”.’ (Isaiah 7, 14)
The sign of God’s love for us at Christmas is there in the Crib, as we see Mary and Joseph with their little child Jesus.
I find Christmas Cribs captivatingly beautiful, and I enjoy kneeling before them, just to imagine the scene of that first Christmas.
Visited by both the wealthiest of wise kings and the poorest of peasant shepherds, it is a sign that God is interested in all of us, from both the affluent and the destitute, the educated and the simple.
We are all beautiful in the eyes of God, because God first made us in his own image, and then became one of us!
Years ago I saw a movie which moved me to tears, and gave me an inkling of the beauty of that first Christmas, and the Crib.
It’s called ‘My Sister’s Keeper’.
In the movie, Cameron Diaz plays the part of the mother of a teenage girl diagnosed with terminal cancer.
One of the scenes that most moved me was the moment the girl, having lost all her hair due to chemotherapy, felt too embarrassed to go out in public, because all her hair had fallen out.
She wouldn’t be budged; she felt humiliated by her hair loss, sick, tired and ugly.
We watch on as she weeps in her misery.
“All right, that’s it” responds her Mum, and leaves the room.
Then she hears a hum coming from the bathroom, and she goes to check out what it is.
There’s our Cameron Diaz in front of the mirror with a hair trimmer calmly shaving off her own hair, in a defiant act of solidarity with her daughter!
She did it to be like her, to let her know she was loved, and not alone in her ‘ugliness’.
And then they went out in public together! That was such a beautiful gesture!
Christmas is God doing something similar for us. In “Hark! The herald Angels Sing” we hear it said:
“Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth…””
Cameron Diaz, try as she might, could never take on her Hollywood daughter’s suffering, assume her cancer, or die her death. Not even in a film.
And if we feel moved by the defiant love of a Mum, who gives up her beautiful hair in order that her daughter not feel ugly, a ‘freak’, how about the crazy real story of a God, who, like the Hymn tells us, takes on our mortality to give us a taste of eternity?
Jesus, however, goes one better. He leaves behind the glories of heaven to take on our fragile, vulnerable, and comparatively ‘ugly’ humanity. He gave up his life for us, born to ‘give us a second birth’.
Yes, we Christians and Catholics have a lot to celebrate at Christmas.
Which is why we make such a fuss about getting back to our Churches at this time, to ponder the Crib for ourselves.
Maybe you, too, might get back to your own Church next week to celebrate the birth of this Christ child?
So, Merry Christmas to you all! May God’s birth in your hearts this year spur you on to bigger and better things, and a greater selflessness of spirit, wherever it is you find yourselves in the New Year.
God bless!
* Fr Morgan is parish priest at St Charles Borromeo Catholic Church (Ryde) and Our Lady Queen of Peace (Gladesville)
