Christ,
The Every Child : Notes for Christmas
Eve
In the Gospel
of Luke, there can be no sign that comes on Christmas Eve that
is not rooted in the rough and difficult ways of those herders,
wanderers, and sometime beggars, the shepherds. They sat about in the
hills beyond the village, telling tales, passing wine skins and warming
themselves by shifts at the fires while watching the sheep. They were
no
friends to most in the village below. Mistrusted as sometime thieves,
drunken louts, yet sharp and hard bargainers when it came to making
deals
for their sheepwool or meat. They were not folk who took
well to
the social order of the village; the patterns and family loyalties of
the
village artisans, farmers and merchants appeared as traps and prisons
to
them. They lived a life on the edge of the acceptable and civilization,
acquainted with the quick and lethal ways of predators and climate.
They often did not attend the
religious
festivals of the synagogue or temple, except on rare
occasions.
If they did so, they were unwelcome
intruders, sitting outside. They had their own religious understandings
that owed more to nights in the wilderness, floods in the spring, and
the long,
hot and dry days on the hills. The Spirit they communed with was wild
and
free, a wind that could whip up sand or bring the lashing
rains of the thunder storm. All their senses were attuned to the
changes
of season, weather and wind, the movements of night creatures and the
circling of vultures. The meaning of each budding plant or cloud shape
was well learned. Lack of attention to human or natural detail could
bring
disaster.
And so the
Gospel writer has the announcement of the Messiah’s birth come
to these herders, these people who are illiterate in terms of the
written word, but nevertheless wise in the ways of the world, both
natural and human. They lived by their shrewd judgment, and their
knowledge of
people and of the desert hills. The Messenger of God comes to them
while
they are on the hills. And at once they are on alert, alarm bells ring
out. What danger to the herd or to us does this mark? Their
instincts are attuned to danger to the fold, but this is not an easily
identified threat. Not a lion, a wolf, a jackal, or a wild dog. A human
figure, a
wanderer like them, coming towards them in the night.
“Down in the
Village. A Birth, a Holy One, a Messiah.” They might have
laughed derisively. That village! They knew its characters and
its
cheats. They knew the brittle village gossip who scolded them
each time
they went down to trade, and the tavern keeper who watered their drinks
and served them rotten meat. They had been ill for days the last
time they had
gone down for an evening's entertainment. They knew the village elder
and holy man who turned his back on them, spitting on the street as
they passed
through, to ward off the evil spirits they might bring. Nazareth was
not
a welcoming place for them. There was no room in its Inn for people
such as
them.
Hearing such a
message, they might have said, “Good luck to him, born
in such a hole in the wall, a place with no hospitality, no room, and
no
human comfort. Good Luck to his mother! A traveller to the
village, you
say? His father too, we hear, is nothing but a day labourer, a worker
with wood. Warn them not eat the taverner’s food, or drink his swill.
They’ll be sick for a week. A Messiah, you say? In Nazareth? More
than likely they’ll crucify the poor tyke before the day's out. We know
them too well."
“But he is one like you. God comes like you, to those on the
edge and outside, those who are not
welcomed. God comes as a child, sleeping in a
manger, a feeding trough! He is wrapped and warm, but outside the
comforts of
home and family.”
And they were
amazed, blown away, speechless. Perhaps, by the sheer audacity of the
ludicrous, foolish, comic notion that
the Holy could be born in this broken down one horse town. He was an
outsider like
them. Laughter, amazement, and then they go to see. Leaving the
youngest
behind to watch the sheep, they go down into the village, down its
hated
streets, to the taverner’s Inn. He sees them coming, expecting to make
some trade on his bad wine and even worse meat. But one says “A
Baby?” He stares at them. “What, they're one of your lot are
they?" I
wouldn’t have let them into the barn if I’d known the trouble they’d
cause. At least she didn’t make too much fuss giving birth. But I doubt
that little toe rag will make it past his first birthday. Didn’t care
much, I guess, just a wandering carpenter's wife needing to register
with
these Romans. But now, how about I feed you some drink and meat?
Good
fresh meat, the best of my wine, the best of everything? It's too
good for the likes of
you, but I'll let you have it on the cheap. No? What’s the
trouble? Go on then, go out back of the
building. But keep it down. Haven’t you seen a baby before? Relatives,
eh? Well, get out of my doorway, you scare away my customers”
There they saw
the poor child, crudely wrapped in cast-offs. And
they came into the 'sight' of the young mother, the anxious father and
the sleeping child. Site or sight, or was it foresight? They saw in
that feeding trough a baby, but a child that tore a veil from their
eyes,
a child that proclaimed to them the Holiness of every birth, through
all
time, in all places, a child that cut through all fears, all
injustices,
and all barriers. A Child, that was God-with-them. God had come to be
with the outcast, the marginal, the left behind and left out. This was a
child who proclaimed the wonder of all creation, a healing, a challenge
to rulers and to emperors. In his cry was a challenge of justice and
new
life, a challenge that no one was to be outside the Creator's love.
All this in
this baby: born outside the Inn, outside of empire and the
socially acceptable. This one was the child who came unblest by
religious authority and power. And the Messenger said, “In this one is
the most high, this one is the Messiah of God!” “What night is this?”
The Shepherds asked, and we might ask. What night is this on which this
child is born? And This Child, as Ray Grigg the Quadra Island poet and
Scholar has put it, is “the Every Child,” the Divine in full humanity
who
is born this night.
Look see!
This night, a Taliban Baby is born, subject to fear and hatred.
A Palestinian Baby is born in occupied territory. An African Baby is
born with
HIV. A baby is born already addicted to Heroin. An unwanted baby and a
poor
child for whom our society has no room. Neither a statistic nor a
social
burden, but an every child, a human child. And what will the birth of
this one mean through the ages and time? What is this birth of God?
What
can this holy night mean when that Child and others such as these are
born? This
night in Nazareth behind the unwelcoming Inn, there was a Divine birth.
This night, into a world of no room, the Christ was born. Now, in this
winter night the “Every” Child of God is born. Shall we make room in
this
time of no room for the wonder that is this “Every” Child’s
birth?