There’s something special about Christmastime, but I’ve had a harder time feeling that Christmas spirit this year than in the past. Perhaps because it’s the first Christmas (aside from my mission) when I won’t be with my parents and siblings. Perhaps because there’s still no snow in Provo. Or perhaps because for the first time (again, aside from my mission), I don’t really have a Christmas break—I’ve always had a couple weeks off around Christmas with school and this year, I have Christmas Eve and Christmas, but back to work on the 26th. Whatever the reason(s), I haven’t reflected as much on the meaning and power of Christmas this year, until today while I was sitting in sacrament meeting.
Cec and I have been celebrating Advent these past few Sundays, which has been helpful. I thought that framing my thoughts on Christmas and Jesus and the Nativity around the four Advent candles (at least their meanings as we’ve interpreted them this year), would be insightful. I’m focusing mostly on the Nativity because Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ and I think it provides an interesting foundation for the themes that are carried throughout Christ’s ministry—the origin story of Jesus Christ, if you will (I watched Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) yesterday and so, origin stories are on my mind. I might play with the idea of the Nativity as Christ’s origin story in some more narrative-speculative work in the future).
Hope
The birth of Christ is a sign of hope. The hope of what he would do—birth strikes me as an immensely hopeful thing. Perhaps because Cec and I are expecting our first child (practically any day now), thinking about the Nativity had new significance this year. Christ as a newborn babe was filled with immense possibility—he hadn’t accomplished anything yet, but contained within him, even as a child, the seeds that would blossom into the greatness that countless worship today.
In this hope, there’s a sense of the unknown. Christ could have become anybody, and that state of the unknown seems to me to be a necessary condition for hope to enter. If we know what is to come, how can we have hope? I hope for what I cannot know. I have hope because of the infinite possibilities that await—the possibility within myself and the possibilities within my yet-unborn child.
In Christ, that hope seems tied to his origin. Christ left his throne above, where he was God—Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament—to come to earth, to be one of us. Us. Simple old us. He was simultaneously everything and nothing. God and Man. Just as all of us are everything and nothing. We all have divinity within. We all can become something more than we are. We are all everything and nothing. And that brings me hope.
Peace
Christ is the Prince of Peace. But, I struggled to locate that peace initially in the story of his birth. (I thought of and disregarded the lines of carols about “no crying he makes”, since I don’t believe that and it seems fairly superficial.) Yet, I think the peace of Christ’s birth is found in the lives of the other characters in the story—the shepherds and wise men.
Peace is work and often comes after untold hours—perhaps years—of effort. The shepherds watched their flocks and were brought a message of joy (we’ll get to that), but the peace didn’t come until they went searching for Christ and found him, a babe. For the shepherds, I don’t know how anticipated this peace was—it seems likely, or at least possible, that they were startled out of their normal existence into a place of peace, called to do more, to make peace. Perhaps the shepherds remind us that peace may call at any time, unexpectedly, and that we are then called to do more—that we must continually strive to make peace.
The wise men tell a different story. I know that they likely didn’t arrive to see Jesus until a couple of years later, but they’re often wrapped up in the narrative and I think tell us something interesting about the peace found in Christ. The wise men definitely were awaiting Christ. They knew the signs, they had invested great effort prior to seeing the star and traveling to follow it. They had been searching for this peace all their lives. And finally, it was realized. For some of us, peace may be thrust upon us, jolt us into action and for others, the peace may reward us for years of effort and bring the rest and comfort we’ve long sought.
Joy
Joy seems perhaps the most straightforward lesson of the Nativity. After all, the angel comes down and says, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” Great joy. A baby is born!
I can only imagine the joy of holding your own newborn baby. I’ve held other newborns and there was definite joy and the faces of babies are just glowing with joy and happiness and love. And, if Mary was feeling anything like Cec has been, I am sure she was filled with great joy to not be filled with that baby boy.
I love that the message of joy that the angel brings is shared first with a couple shepherds, but is said to be “to all people.” Joy is something that necessitates sharing. It pushes us to tell others, to bring them in, to gather, to laugh, to commune with one another. Joy is an inclusive embrace. Joy is an emotion of connection, not distance or solitude.
The message of joy here was also one of peace, of hope, of love—of possibility. Joy at what had happened and what was to come. Sure, Jesus was born now, but he hadn’t done anything. And yet, joy was still merited. Joy need not wait until the end. Joy can be felt throughout our lives, perhaps even in anticipation of what is to come. Joy comes early. Joy is more than happiness at the outcome—joy is light and connection and love and hope and peace and anticipation and possibility and celebration and being.
Love
Love is love is love is love. And love is all over the Nativity. Love is first found in Mary and Joseph. They stick with each other through the weird, unpredictable, wild experience of Christ’s conception and their own, unique difficulties during that experience. They travel all the way to Bethlehem, while Mary is “great with child” and oh boy, that must have taken loads of love all the way around to get there. And then, they can’t find a place to stay and end up in a manger and are just making the best of it, when BAM, Jesus is born.
I can only imagine that the love they had for one another was also felt for baby Jesus. They sought to keep him comfortable and safe and protected during this weirdness. Christ choosing to come to earth is in act of love—Christ didn’t have to come, but he did. For us. Out of love.
Throughout the Nativity, I see the origins of Christ’s constant preaching about the least among us and our need to care for each other and to love one another, culminating in his parable that illustrates that if we have done anything unto the least of these, we have done it unto him. Christ came into the world as one of the least of us—a baby, oppressed by Rome, something of a refugee, an outcast, alone.
Christ’s message and birth demonstrate that radical humility and radical love reverberate throughout history and change hearts and minds—transform us (me) into better people. That we can be of nothing and focus on blessing the few around us we can and that can be enough.
Last week our ward had a Christmas program and a man, with a fantastic voice, sang “The Innkeeper (Let Him In)” from The Forgotten Carols which I had never heard before. It’s a bit cheesy and on the nose, but the performance was stunning—he Broadway belted the final chorus and I had chills. The song spoke to me of what Christ calls us to do, what the Nativity asks of me—radical openness and acceptance, to let him in. I need to let Christ in through those around me that are hurt, marginalized, oppressed, voiceless. Those that society neglects and pushes into the manger instead of the inn. Those that come to me and ask for something, anything. I need to open my heart and mind to the words and presence of those that I may be tempted to overlook, to ignore, for as I open myself to them, perhaps I will find Him.
Conor Hilton 