At Christmas, we naturally reflect on families, on children. I think of the baptisms I’ve been privileged to celebrate. When a child is baptised the ceremony normally finishes with a blessing of the parents. I think we can all agree that parents need all the help they can get. The blessing prayer for the mother is quite beautiful- it includes the wonderful words ‘she sees the hope of eternal life shine on her child.’
To have a child is an act of hope. At Christmas we are invited to hope, hope because creation is beautiful and wonderful, hope because God, the creator, has entered into creation, that God our Father becomes God, Jesus, our brother, hope because in the ‘yes’ that Mary spoke at the Annunciation the path was opened for us all to participate in divine life, in the life of God.
And all this, God the creator taking flesh, the invitation for us all to become divine, the invitation to eternal life, happens among the poor, the meek, the lowly, as the well known carol says. In Luke’s Christmas account we can hear the difference between those who have the power, and those who don’t. On the one hand the powerful, Caesar and his ruling class, who wanted a census. Why a census? Well in the ancient world rulers had a census for two reasons - to find out how many soldiers they could use, and also to find out how much tax they could squeeze out of the people. Then on the other hand, the powerless. People like Joseph, who then had to walk with Mary, 8 or 9 months pregnant, from his home in Nazareth to Bethlehem. That’s over 140 Kms. Even if Mary rode a donkey can you imagine how tough it would have been on both of them. They were the powerless ones.
And it is to the powerless that God comes, that angels sing. This is why the church is at its best when we Christians serve the poor. Christmas challenges us to look at Jesus, a weak baby in a family of poor workers. This Jesus, our faith tells us, is God become human. Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke of the street people she served as ‘Jesus in his most distressing disguise.’ We may not be called to work with street people, but we are challenged by our Christian faith to look for Jesus in the powerless. In our families, our workplaces, our schools or our communities we are called to serve those who are on the margins, who may be poor, or disabled, or difficult. May we have the vision to see them, and the wisdom and patience to serve them. After all, they, like us, are called to the hope of eternal life. And may we all have a joyous Christmas.
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