“The people that walked in darkness have
seen a great light.” At last, the journeys’ end. For there have been
different paths. Mary and Joseph, having travelled down from Galilee, at
last arrive weary into Bethlehem. The shepherds, making their way down
from the hills in the surrounding countryside, will soon reach the
stable. A few more days and the magi will have crossed far greater
distances, followed the star to this same end. And at the end of these
three journeys, the child who is the glory of God and peace to men and
women.
Each of these journeys captures or
reflects something of even longer, harder, travels. In Mary and Joseph
we see something of Israel’s journey towards the Promised Land. This was
the exodus journey out of slavery through a wilderness beset with
trials, the darkness of infidelity to the covenant, the persecution of
the prophets, dark days of foreign invasion and the desecration of God’s
holy nation. Encapsulated in the magi’s pilgrimage, lies the gentiles’
long search for God, the darkness of idolatry, and perhaps the guiding
light of reason. And, then, the shepherds who live in the fields, a
journey made by the homeless and migrant labourers, by the marginalised
outsiders who contend against the darkness of both material deprivation
and social exclusion.
All find their journey’s end in the
Christ child. It isn’t simply that each of these travels finish at the
same point, but in this common ending the travellers themselves find a
new commonality. What does the angel say? ‘I bring you news of great
joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people.’
That’s why Isaiah can prophesy that ‘all
the footgear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood, is burnt and
consumed by fire.’ For the child in the cradle is the Prince of Peace,
the one in whom enmity and social injustice is to be overcome by God’s
grace, by the forgiveness of sins. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux once
wrote, God ‘could say from the beginning: “My thoughts are thoughts of
peace, not of affliction.” Father, Son and Holy Spirit live in perfect
peace. But we do not think like this, live like this, “for who
has known the mind of the Lord and who has been his counsellor?
Therefore the thought of peace came down to be a work of peace: the Word
became flesh and now dwells among us.’
As we worship this child, sing God’s
praises this Christmas, we can know with relief that God has acted to
save us from ourselves, to heal us of our many conflicts. And look again
at where we find this new unity in Christ – in ‘a joy to be shared by
the whole people.’ Christian unity is found and founded in that shared
joy which is the presence within and among us of the Holy Spirit.
Of course, we can sometimes be nervous
of joy, and with some reason. After all, there are those who are tempted
to whoop it up regardless of others, of their sufferings. The
ghetto-blaster and the i-pod can each be symbols of a joy that is sought
in isolation from neighbours, either deafening for, or deaf to, those
around us. Some look for joy in the oblivion of alcoholic excess or and
drug-induced euphoria, stepping out from a mundane world they find empty
or just not enough. In the process they grow less and less capable of
life in the real world. Perhaps more common is a fear of disappointment,
a sort of scar tissue which forms over our various hurts, a wariness
about joys that will inevitably be soured, so we stop short of a
happiness we fear to lose.
Christianity is sensitive to this last
fear, already knows that the crucifixion is implicit in the nativity.
It’s not accidental that there’s no room for the Christ-child at the
inn: rejection meets his very arrival. But the joy of the Holy Spirit
runs through, runs beneath, real sufferings, real grief, like an
underground current that at the right time breaks surface and overflows,
giving new hope in place of despair. It wells up in faith, trust in
God’s infinite goodness, His providence. It issues today in a joyous
festival, a liturgy that practises for the endless and perfect joy of
heaven.
There’s a personal journey that still
continues, and each community has its journey as well, as we struggle
for friendship, for the discipleship asked of us by the Christ child.
But we see in this first Christmas the grace which now draws us to into
the eternal joy of God’s presence. At Christmas we practise for that joy
as we give thanks and praise. The angels are our models: their singing
is the template for the heavenly life in which we shall rejoice in God,
and with God. We journey on with new heart and purpose as the angelic
chorus rings in our ears.(Richard Finn.OP.torch.op.org:here)
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