The Perfect Christmas

The Perfect Christmas!

In my mind’s eve Christmas is always perfect. 

I picture a large fireplace, stockings hung on the mantle, a Christmas tree with an abundance of presents, and a large happy family filled with laughter and joy on Christmas Eve and when morning dawns. One surprise after another announces how thoughtful and loving we all are of each other.

Many of us seek to create Christmas after the images we have in our minds’ eye of what this holy time means to us. 

But then there comes reality, perhaps what Christmas has become will be just a bit different for many of us. Many of the family we celebrated with in those days are no longer with us. Thankfully, we tend to forget the hurt and the conflict that left us out of communion with one another. Some of us will be alone. There is fear and poverty, and a few too many dislike others for one reason or another. I do wish Christmas could be perfect like it is in my mind’s eye. But, truth be told, Christmas is real.

There was one Christmas that was both perfect and real!

Especially real and absolutely perfect was that first Christmas, we read about it in the tonight’s Gospel. Our homes are warm, but in that holiest of holy places, there were barnyard animals, and God’s greatest Gift to the world was placed on a bed of hay where these same animals eat. That’s what the word “manger’ means after all. In French the word “manger” means “to eat”. In Italian “mange, mange” means “eat, eat!”. 

There was no room for this Child and his family in any local Inn where it might be cozy and warm. There were no hospitals, no midwives to minister to the Mother of God. Still they huddled close for warmth. Bethlehem gets cold at this time of year. It can even snow there. I would not be the bit least surprised if God’s living beings could see their breath on this most holy night. 

Included in the reality of this Holy Family is the fact that Mary and Joseph were “engaged” or “betrothed” as the Old English would have it. Jesus was born to us without the benefit of wedlock. Matthew’s Gospel records Joseph’s concerns about our Lady’s honor. But then the dream that came to him reassured Joseph of God’s decision to make this birth the instrument of God somehow becoming Flesh and Blood among us. (~Matthew 1:1-23)

Whatever the case, they had to make haste and get to the city of Joseph’s “house and lineage” where he could be recorded for the census. Nothing but death is more certain and real than taxes! And so it was that this family of modest means made their way by night to the little town of Bethlehem. 

We are told that the journey was a dangerous one. There was Herod and his murderous threats. The Family travelled by night. A star appeared to guide them on their way. And then, in the fullness of time the Child was born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes to keep him as warm as she could. She held him close to bond her love to his. No matter how deeply we dig down into the Mystery of this birth narrative we cannot help but be filled with the Hope, Love, Joy and Peace of Christmas The vision of that Mother and Child has moved the world then and since to the Gospel of Jesus; his life, death, and resurrection, and his victory over sin and death.

The angels sang when they told the shepherds of the news. They too made haste to see this thing that had come to pass. And so it was that all of heaven and earth would sing. 

In my mind’s eye, this is really where my gaze comes to rest. Not so much in the comfort and warmth of my own home but in the reality and perfection of God’s coming to us in the Word of God made flesh and blood in Jesus. 

I think it right that he would be born in a “manger” where the animals could not help but take a taste of hay. Very likely Mary and Joseph would gladly feed them. After all, the animals were hungry too. And Mary and Joseph being grateful for this humble place to birth a child, would only be too happy to share what little they had with the animals who gave them what warmth they could generate.

Christmas makes us all hungry for good things to eat. My grandmother’s squash pie, I can almost smell it still! The oven bursting with turkey, the turkey bursting with stuffing and all the fixings. The dishes laden with food. The family gathered passing it all around, and me stuffing my plate   and my stomach beyond its capacity to hold it all. The memory is all so holy.

And then the long and luxurious afternoons where the women played cards and gossiped in the kitchen and the men would sleep in the parlor. My brother Bobby and I playing with trucks or troops and when there was a loud noise which there was bound to be, one of the uncles would growl at us to be quiet. We’d snicker and comply for a bit. But then it would happen all over again. It was Christmas!

This was all a long time ago for me. But many more will rehearse the family traditions all over again this year. Others celebrate Christmas in their own peculiar and unique way. But it all began a very long time ago when the greatest gift of all was given on one very silent and holy night far, far away. 

And my soul sings with joy to this old world because of what I remember in profound gratitude for the life God gives me and the family that made me who I am. 

And tonight God’s Table is laden with good things to eat. Perhaps it only looks like a little wafer broken by an old semi-retired priest and a cup of ordinary wine. But we gather too around this table and hold out our hands to receive this Child born anew tonight in our souls. 

This Bread and this Wine is more than all our Christmas Tables put end to end from one generation to another for as long as humankind has feasted in all our holidays rolled up into one. This is God’s very Banquet Table. And all of us, from the first days of our redemption until now and yet to come are welcome and invited! 

This Bread and this Wine we receive tonight was born in a manger a long time ago and far away. He fills us with good things, his very life born for us in flesh and blood like everything that is real about him and us. Jesus fills us with Eternal Life.

My soul sings with joy to this old world because of what I know of this little Child and his mother dear. For Joseph, the carpenter, and the donkey standing near. The cattle lowing and the rooster crowing. 

And the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

The Perfect Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided, and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul