I’ve been accused of “not liking to celebrate” by some of my friends. I am a certified Grinch when it comes to most holiday or seasonal traditions throughout the year: Easter egg hunts, pumpkin carving, apple picking, visiting Santa, Elf on the Shelf, Valentine’s parties, and all the other obligatory activities that Facebook and Pinterest insist I complete in a calendar year. My friend, Lauren, describes my problem as having a bias towards authenticity; she says I have issues with anything I perceive as contrived or pretentious.
I come by it honestly. My family didn’t indulge in photo ops and obligatory celebrations. If we picked apples, it was to eat them, not to take cute pictures. If we saw Santa, it was to ask for that special gift that we knew our parents couldn’t afford to buy for us without a special occasion. My father put it best when he gave me advice about training horses, “Linda, everything you do must have MEANING to the horse--and in life.” He passed on his belief that anything worth my time must have an underlying meaning, a true authenticity, something that actually feeds the soul. It is difficult to find that nugget of meaning within the trappings of our materialistic society. When the stores blast “This Christmas” and scream about Black Friday sales, how do I find the grace of the incarnation of Christ?
The traditional nativity story is a big of a stumbling block to me. Most educated people realize that Jesus of Nazareth was most likely not born on December 25, in a stable, in a manger, attended by shepherds and wise men. Most people realize that the birth narratives in the gospels are either missing or contradictory and that our traditional “Christmas story” is an amalgam of all the gospel stories, condensed in time, elaborated, and cleaned up into a lovely ideal of virgin birth in a sweet-smelling stable. The mother is radiant, the baby doesn’t cry, and little boys come and play drum solos for him. It’s beautiful, but even as a fiction, it is a little unbelivable. I love Jesus but I am confused by the stories of his birth. What does a fervent, but educated, Christian make out of all of this fantasy?
This year, I had the singular experience of giving birth to a baby during Advent. I felt the agony of waiting, through days of early labor, feeling the birth pangs near and dear in my own womb. As my own mind withdrew to the width and breadth of my swollen belly, turning inward towards the contractions, seeking the inevitable pain which brings great things to bear, I felt Advent acutely. I felt the frustration of waiting and the fear of the effort to bring the glorious end to bear. Whether Mary’s long journey to Bethlehem and birth in a stable was fact or fiction, that story had new meaning to me this year.
The effort of a woman about to deliver a child is a special mix of anxiety, longing, frustration, and fear. I longed for release from pregnancy, worried over the timing of the birth (would I be ready, who would help me, who would watch my girls while we hurried to the hospital), and feared but longed for the inevitable pains and effort. This was my third pregnancy, so I knew that it hurt, that it was work, that it was messy and scary and unpredictable. Feeling all of this so closely, the nativity story began to take on a new light. One way or another, Jesus Christ, the King, was born in the same way as every other baby. Whether in a house, a cave, a stable, a hospital, all babies are born through the power of a woman’s body, the singular effort of a specific mother, shared by the nature of all women throughout all the world. Every birth is at once specific and particular, and universal. The King of Kings arrived in this world, naked, screaming, covered with amniotic fluid, attached to his mother by a cord, helpless and vulnerable, through the strength of his mother.
We often talk about how much God loved the world when he gave his only son. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much the world loved God. Jesus came to the world as a baby, and babies need to be loved into being. If a baby is not hugged, cuddled, and loved, that baby will not thrive, even if all his material needs are met. Regardless of exactly how and where Jesus Christ was born, he grew up into a healthy young man. Excuse me for being fanciful here, but if Jesus grew up into a grown man, I believe someone loved him as he grew. Someone must have bounced him when he was colicky, sang him to sleep, kissed his boo-boos, educated him. Just as God loved the world into being, when Christ was born in a particular, specific time and place, those particular, specific people loved him into being. God so loved the world that he let the world love his son.
For me, this Christmas, that is the nugget of meaning. As my newborn baby cries during the nights, as my three-year-old needs me to wipe her runny nose, as my six-year-old needs my help with her Legos, I have the gift of loving these children into being. For me, the love doesn’t come in the form of Elves on Shelves, or elaborate Christmas cookies. For me, the love comes singing Christmas hymns as my children drift off to sleep, in the quiet night-time bed checks, in the sticky-fingered hugs, and the lop-sided home-made gifts. Those little moments pull me out of my frustration at commercialism, at my lack of funds to provide the newest, fanciest toys, at my impatience and my weariness. Those little moments remind me that my job is to love the world, because the world loved God.
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