Christmass 2024
The muck of our mistakes.
It is easy when we know God is born into our good stuff, in our joy and giggling and triumphs. This is where we see Him, feel Him, and delight in the sense of closeness with Him. In these moments we do so easily with clarity and glee. And in these times, in the easy and luscious times, it is right that we celebrate with God and in God.
But what if,… like the squealing urchin in the wonky rough-hewn feed-box, God is also right in smack bang, firmly ensconced, in our awkward embarrassments? Is it not also possible, most highly probable, in fact, a certainty that God also chooses to live in those dark places within us? Those murky areas where we actually don’t want His light to be shone, because we know what is there and we are ashamed. God born in Our humiliating times, our most appalling, abysmal and woeful places. God is born in our most ghastly mistakes.
Surely if he is the incarnate God, a God who comes in human flesh, he is God for every last bit of us, leaving out absolutely nothing. So we offer God the crude, rough, manky and dank places and we ask him to be born there as well. It will take a lot of courage to let Him lie there amongst our denials, our misgivings and our frailties. God is made flesh and is right there with us and in us, in those times when we chose wrong, knowing it was wrong, but we chose it anyway because it felt right, it seemed like a good idea at the time and who will ever know nudge-nudge? The Christ child was and is with us when the wrong action presented itself and we winked, we flirted, we succumbed. We went over to the dark side. Those times when we allowed the wrong harsh words to escape and found to our appalling horror we could not put them back in our mouths. The arrow thoughts about … well … you know who.
Mary and Joseph’s long, dark, painful journey is a symbol of our soul searching where we stumble, and tumble along the rocky path of conscience and self-examination. Like Mary and Joseph, the trek is uncomfortable and disquieting and we might well think… how did it ever come to this? What am I doing here?
But at the end of the trek, when we arrive at our own Bethlehem and are candid about our raw, naked, slime, sludge and mire, we will discover that the Christ-child is already there on the straw sleeping comfortably knowing that this is where He wants to be. We worship a God who wants to be right there in the slush of our murkiness. And He actually wants to be there, longs be there can be in no other place than right there because of His unrelenting, unremitting, unquenchable, uncontrollable, uncontainable love.
So my prayer for us this Christmass is that not only will we discover God in the champagne and the tinsel and the family and the sweetmeats and the presents. But that you and I will also have the courage to discover with amazement, delight and surprise, that He is also right there in the muck of our mistakes. Squealing and gurgling with delight. And there with our own beasts of guilt, hand wringing and regret, we will discover that we are not as alone as we first thought. That Our Lady and St. Joseph and shepherds and angels are right here with us. They are welcoming us and cheering us on and are our very best friends. Ever.
It took us a little while, maybe a whole lifetime perhaps to understand this simple but profound fact. That there is no stable, no error of judgment, no place of denial, no act of betrayal, no oversight or blunder where God cannot be.
It has taken us far too long to know this, and now that we do, it is something we should celebrate for a long time indeed for the rest of our lives. This saving fact should send corks flying to the ceiling and fill our mouths with laughter.
Until that day when we no longer need the tinsel and the piped music and the bonbons and the bread and wine.
God came from heaven to earth; so that we on earth might … forever and ever amen.