The Challenge of Christmas

Editorial printed on 24 December 1997

The wonder of Christmas is mostly seen as something for children and yet there is a deep source of awe that adults, too, can know.

This sensibility to the Christmas mystery may be prompted by hearing the oft-quoted lines of the poet John Benjamin as he asks the basic question about Christmas:

`And is it true? And is it true, this most tremendous tale of all.

The Maker of the stars and sea Become a Child on earth for me? (John Benjamin, `Christmas').

Behind this question, and at the heart of Christmas, there is always a sense of wonder we should be awestruck at what we claim it to be. We say that it is the birthday of Christ, the celebration of the mystery that God has come among us, that He is present in our world and in our lives, that God has untied Himself fully with us. It is from the sense of God's union with us that Christmas is about being able to marvel at the miracle of what it is to be truly human.

It is often said now that faith in God's presence is increasingly absent from our world. This is a profound loss. For many people this loss of God is just another name for the loss of the wonder of being human. Christmas comes back to remind us of our own mystery. At the heart of the Christian view of Christmas is the idea that God elevates humanity to union with Himself, a truly remarkable vision of what God makes possible for the human being.

Christmas invites us, if we can accept the invitation, to once again `credit marvels'. It is `` ... time to be dazzled and the heart to lighten.'' (Seamus Heaney).

The Christmas story tells us that God comes to meet us and to encourage our search for wonder.

He does this by being present in the depths of our being even as we search for Him. He calls us to find Him in (re)discovering our own inner depths.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that one of the most popular of all Christmas Carols celebrates the silence and stillness of Christmas night. `Silent Night' reminds us that stillness truly does open the way for us to wonder and marvel at the presence of God in our lives, that presence which makes this a holy night.

In the mad rush of the modern Ireland of work and business, and especially in the pressing and hemmed-in experience of Christmas shopping, stillness may seem like a luxury for most of us, something beyond our means. Yet we occasionally catch a glimpse of how very powerful a moment's silence may be.

Many people were very moved by the moments of profound public silence that occurred at the time of the funeral of Princess Diana. Somehow there was a sense of an experience that was beyond words, an experience of reverence for a human life that words alone could not convey.

A solemn silence and stillness at special moments whether of death or birth do allow us to face the limits of our being. It is at the edge of normal experience, in a silence that communicates positive depth and mystery, that a real moment of prayer can occur, that the presence of God is to be encountered.

Part of the imagery of Christmas is the night sky in which signs of the devine can be disconcerned. Whether we see the heavens as depicted in an artist's ``starry starry night'', or in the extraordinary cosmic images sent back via the Hubble telescope, they do give us cause to wonder.

This sense of wonder at nature and the cosmos may move us to a search for meaning, like the Magi in Matthew's story.

The journey of the Magi began from their contemplation of the heavens. Their searching journey led them to Jerusalem where they received a new source for reflection. It was the scriptures, the written word of God, which finally pointed them towards Bethlehem and their discovery of the Christ.

This journey, long as it was, began with a few simple steps. For us, too, it may begin as simply as tuning in to a religious programme or a carol service on radio or television or by attending our local church.

Any of these programmes or services will include a reading of stories about the Infancy of Jesus from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. These readings point us also to Bethlehem and invite us to be open in wonder to the child born there who reveals to us the wonder of ourselves.

The Christmas readings bring us before the child in the crib whose image is everywhere around us at Christmas. Unlike much of what we see around us, the imagery of the scriptures is not sentimentally. The Christmas readings have a `challenge' for those who are open to hear them.

As we celebrate this particular Christmas in Ireland there is undoubtedly a sense for many people that they have `arrived'. Economic success has created a `buzz', a sense of fulfilment.

Yet the Christmas readings come to give a nagging nudge to such feelings of comfort, suggesting a focus for our celebrations beyond our immediate horizons of self-interest. The message of Christmas challenges everyone to recognise that there are very many poor, needy and even desperate people living not far from us.

We remain a small country where even the most privileged don't live all that far from those in real need. There can be no true celebration of God's coming among us if it is built on a selective myopia towards Christ's presence in the poor, the deprived and all those who may turn to us for help.

There is a striking passage in St Luke's Infancy Narrative which well expresses this `challenge' of Christmas. Our Lady has just gone on a journey to Elizabeth to celebrate with her the joy of the new life they both carry. Mary sings a song of thanksgiving which is anything but sentimental. Her song is not just about the baby in her womb but an exultation, at the liberation she expects him to achieve. In this hymn St Luke portrays Mary as the spokeswoman for the poor and deprived, the humiliated and oppressed. What Mary celebrates is not just her own happiness at the conception of Jesus, but the good news that through her child, Almighty God `has raised high the lowly. He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty.' (Luke 1:52:43 - New Jerusalem Bible).

Here surely is a challenging view of what Christmas is about, a radical reversal of current fortunes. Mary's 'Magnificent' is a charter for celebrating the birth of Christ as the redemption of the poor, the saving of the oppressed.

This challenge that is Christmas calls us to go on a journey of rediscovery. We are invited to see the wonder of our humanity, to renew our hope for justice for all, and like the Magi to discover that we all have gifts to bring, gifts which can actually contribute to that song of joy that God has promised all his poor will sing.