The feast of the Incarnation
is upon us.
For today, in many houses,
there will be joy,
fun,
laughter,
overeating and drinking.
For today, in many houses
there will be misery,
fighting,
weeping,
hunger and thirst.
It seems that
the feast of the Incarnation
is no guarantee
of the good things in this life.
Indeed,
for many,
it is a day of anxiety
and stress
in trying to make
the perfect Christmas.
So intense is this pressure
that Christmas
loses all meaning
in the attempt to
bring joy
into the lives of families.
What does this prove?
Does it show that,
perhaps,
we should cancel Christmas
for the suffering
it inflicts in others?
[PAUSE]
We all want a happy Christmas.
If we are truly loving,
we should want everyone
to have the perfect Christmas,
regardless of who that are.
However,
the limitations
of being human
are not removed
even at Christmas,
even if we approach Christmas
on our knees
begging God
for a happy Christmas.
We have in our heads,
in our cards, carols
and Christmas dinner
an idea of what the perfect Christmas
looks like.
But we cannot reach it.
The one thing
that would truly make
the perfect Christmas
is sharing our celebrations
with Christ Himself
sat at our dinner table.
Or would it be better
for us to be sat
at His Christmas dinner table?
[PAUSE]
Again,
we see the Incarnation
for what it is.
Christ becoming like us
so that we can become
like Him.
His humanity
comes to complete
our humanity.
His grace perfects our nature.
It perfects our nature.
It doesn't destroy our nature.
This is important.
[PAUSE]
Christ promises us
a feast
and rejoicing in Heaven.
This means
He perfects our feast
and rejoicing on Earth.
Our Christmas celebrations
become an image,
an ikon,
of the Eternal feast in Heaven.
It means
we are not only permitted
to make merry on Christmas Day
but we are encouraged by God
to make merry on Christmas Day.
Our work and preparations
need to focus
on making that
ikon of Christmas celebration
visible to everyone
by first ensuring
that we have invited Christ
to be with us
and then consecrating
our decorations,
our food,
our games,
to the worship of the God of joy.
This doesn't mean being
austere and serious and pious;
this means being your best self
the person that God created
with all the faults and frailties
and failures of being human
but a human nonetheless
bound for the joys of Heaven
in God.
Yes,
Christmas this year
may be miserable
but it is still possible
to see even in
the most impoverished,
the most distressing,
the darkest Christmas,
the meagreness
of the stable,
the manger,
the hay,
the smell of oxen, asses
and camels,
the pain of the birth,
the agony of the future Crucifixion
as foretold in the gift of myrrh.
Christ can be there
in sadness, fear and confusion,
because He of His Incarnation
in which He sanctifies
sadness, fear and confusion
so that they can become
vehicles to Heaven in Him.
[PAUSE]
God bless your Christmas Day
and be present with you
in its successes and failures,
the perfect sprouts,
the burnt turkey
or the nothing-at-all
and bring a glimpse of Heaven
no matter what happens.
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