Ready or not... can we?

Ready or not the seasons are shifting.

Of course, we know in our heads that all time moves at the same speed, but our hearts simply will go on beating to some other, more mysterious, rhythm.

Sometimes the gap between those two experiences of time feels like a chasm. We stand on the edge, our hearts out of sync with the calendar, and we fear we will tumble, head over heels, into emptiness. But there are other days. Like Advent days. Then the gap between head-time and heart-time becomes a sacred place and a welcome retreat.

The season of advent is beginning again. Advent - a season so full of tradition and often over full, bustling and bursting with the exhausting activities of keeping traditions, creating memories, and recalling legends. 

And as Advent begins, Matthew comes to us, as a kind of holy spirit of Christmas past, bidding us to lay aside for the moment our Christmas lists, leave the half-trimmed tree, pause the holiday movie, dry our hands from washing the cookie cutters and follow him. As we do, all we see begins to swirl into an unfamiliar darkness. 

Suddenly, we find ourselves standing in what we somehow know is a small, ancient Palestinian village on an unusually starry night The shapes and shadows of buildings look strange. The human and animal noises sound strange. The smoky recents of fire, foods, burning oils and manure smell strange. The utter absence of electric light is strange… 

Life is a journey. Sometimes night isn’t something we see with our eyes, but something we experience in our hearts when we wait too long… for something we hope for. A dream. A passion. A child or a home. Sometimes, we find our footsteps on an unexpected journey of silence… when we’re prayed and part … for someone we hope would be our companion. 

Matthew leads us beyond the village and down a dark, twisting rocky path to some ignored, ignoble spot where we suddenly come upon a sight that we find surprisingly disturbing. Not ten feet away, asleep on the ground, near a small fire that has burned down to embers, is a peasant girl. She has bits of straw in her long, messy, dark hair and she is wrapped in dirty cloaks and a blanket. A split-second look tells us how difficult this night has been for her. And she is so young. Even more distressing, we see beside her a small, crude, dirty feeding trough in which lays a sleeping newborn, wrapped tightly in unsanitary, blood-smeared cloths. 

Taking a few tentative steps forward. I know this child, and know this girl. But the scene is strange to me… it does not look anything like the manger scenes and illustrated books of children. Our Advent traditions did not prepare us for the earthy realness of the real Advent. 

Mary is not serene. She’s bone weary. And no divine, heavenly glow emanates from the child. He is not even especially beautiful. (Isaiah 53:2) In fact, there is nothing about this child to suggest the unfathomable mystery of who he is. We are unnerved to realise that, had we not already known, we would not have recognised him at all. This scene, the real Christmas, has nothing of the feeling of the Christmas we know. It has all the feel of undesired, desperate homelessness - more like a scene we’d find under a bridge than under our Christmas tree. And we are hit with the shock of a truth we’ve known all our lives: This young girl just gave birth to a baby - the baby - in a pasture!

Our visceral response is pity and sadness. This poor girl and her baby! I know this story, but I see it as it really was, it seems so wrong. Our impulse is to do something to help them. We look incredulously at Matthew. He, calmly looking from the child to us, quietly says, “There was no place for them in the inn” No place? No place besides a field for the Maker of the world? The cosmic incongruity stuns us. 

Surely we can find some room somewhere! I respond. “can you?” Matthew replies. Then he turns and begins back up the path. Looking back at the girl and the child, just as Palestinian darkness begins to swirl with a familiar light. 

It is with hope God sparked a special star one dark night. It was so bright that men from the opposite ends of the world could see it. Yet, this light was also placed somewhere no one else would notice it. Except by the wise men - the magi. 

The star was a quiet, glimmering sparkle. 

Is this real? Should I go? I imagine the magi asking. 

These are questions we may be asking ourselves. Yet at the time, only silence echoed back. Except one thing didn’t fade. This light kept shinning. 

Inviting them to follow - inviting us to follow. 

This star - this light - invited them to go on a new journey. Away from life as they knew it. 

Suddenly, we find ourselves standing where Matthew has found us. There are Christmas lists, the half trimmed tree, the holiday movie paused, the pans in the sink. The familiar street of the bustling schedule of Advent activities reawakens. 

But seared in our minds is the pathetic picture of the holy, homeless mother and child. Bustling and bursting had no room for advent of Jesus. And echoing in our ears are our own words, “Surely we can find some room somewhere!”

Can we?