Christmas, like a poem, it should be, not mean. It is a mystery, a miracle, as personal as one’s birthday, as universal as the concept of cosmic love made visible.
We respond to the reality of God’s coming to earth as uniquely as the God within us prods the response.
As with celebrations continually renewed — the special blue of an August sky, icy tree limbs transformed into rainbows by the winter sunlight, the depth of a child’s eyes as his meet yours — you discover in Christmas a freshness in the familiarity, but light shines from a different angle to lend a new perspective. So it is with Christmas.
Christmas began without any help from us. The incarnation wasn’t dreamed of to give children a holiday.
It is difficult to register that the birth of Jesus is a gift of God to us. We can’t quite grasp its preciousness. It is like giving a string of genuine pearls to a young daughter who prefers the rosier cast of a costume jewelry choker to the muted, dull reality.
So, we often settle for the surface celebration. We give of our money and ourselves unashamedly because it feels so good! In another season, without such a legitimate crutch to grasp, we would restrain ourselves.
Christmas is a time when separation from those we love is most unbearable. We want to hold them close to our hearts as well as in our arms.
Is this sentimental rambling? It could be, since Christmas is all about a baby. Babies do possess a way of stirring our emotions.
Dross accumulates on the ornaments and tinsels the heart, if you let it. But, do not underestimate a soul’s yearning for the source of joy even while it rides the surface excitement of sentiment for it knows that there is more to Christmas than the “hey nonny nonny” of a Druid rite or the brief hesitation of the winter solstice.
