Do you hear what I hear?

Its hard to believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. For me personally, Christmas Eve feels like Christmas. The Buzz around the church, laughter, surrounded by those who embrace each other as family, the joy we are about to experience after four weeks of waiting in joyful expectation. 

This year, it has not felt too much like Christmas, with the year coming to a conclusion, so much going on and challenges are before me. While at times I can feel the emptiness of the crib, the longing for joy to arrive, the feeling of been on the journey to unknown. There is a sweetness still in the air, to know that I am surrounded by love, surrounded by a deep certainty of that only faith can provide. 

All the sounds of Christmas are in fully swing around the place; songs that bring nostalgia, lights shinning and pine trees decorated. Brigid and I went to the city to experience the smell, sights and taste of Christmas, get our souls into the festive season. 

Do you hear what I hear?

This song which we all know, rings through my ears often. Yet when I quiet down at Christmas time I hear other things too. I hear the joyful laughter of children opening the parcel in glee of what will be within its layers. I hear grief that wells up uninvited - the kind we stuff back down or worse, the kind we can’t seem to contain anymore. I hear the longing for lots more stuff and much less stuff in the same breath, discontent that has nothing to do with the stuff at all. I hear the longing for home, for friends - real friends, for family that once was or isn’t yet. I hear discord and disunity and disappointment and the racing of a distracted mind that can barely listen at all. I hear the ache of all that is hurting and broken and not yet made right in the world. 

My mind wanders back to the first Christmas and all the sounds of that event. 

Do you hear what they heard?

Mary heard the angel’s voice, Joseph listened while he slept. The innkeeper heard the invitation, and whatever oz or donkey inhabited the stable that holy night heard the cries of a woman in labor. Perhaps all of heaven held its breath, listening, waiting for the very breath that spoke this world into being to pulse over fragile vocal chords; a newborn cry in the night. Wisemen heard the prophecies, before following the star. Shepherds heard the angel choir; Do not be afraid. 

Even Herod listened to the wisemen’s tale, and chief priests’ interpretation. The angel spoke again, the wisemen retuned home another way and Joseph and Marry fled to Egypt with the Christ child. All throughout the Christmas story, we hear the angels singing, we sense the invitation; listen, listen, listen. 

This advent, I have spent moments looking around this broken world, around our broken tables and neighbourhoods, and even, maybe especially in our own homes and hearts, the invitation is for us too; LISTEN. Like shepherds on the hillside, like Mary to the angel, like Joseph in his dream, we can offer the gift of listening. 

Have you ever thought of the fact we can listen for the joy. Let’s read an unhurried story with a child, listen to someone older than us share their Christmas memories. Let’s laugh together, and sing together with eye contact, with love. Let’s gather it up, all those very ordinary moments and ponder them in our hearts like Mary did. Let’s listen and give the gift of presence. 

I feel its important to listen to the pain too. God became flesh, and came near our brokenness yet often we pretend we don’t have any - any need, any pain, any sin, any broken places. Let’s listen to the pain, in our own lives and in the lives of those around us, and let it lead us back to the One who comes near, right into the mess of the stable and into the mess of our lives. Let’s make space to be present with each other and with God in our pain. 

Lets listen to those we love the dearest, the ones we take for granted. And listen to those we don’t understand. Lets’s learn to look for the Imago Dei - the image of God in every person we meet. 

When we make space to listen and give our presence this Christmas, we follow in the footsteps of Mary and Joseph and the oz and the donkey and the shepherds and the wisemen and all those who heard the good news that first Christmas. And when we get really quiet, when we really listen, we will hear the truest story of all, the one that courses through every joy and every sorrow know to man, that Christ has come and dwelt among us, the One who made us has come near, the joy of every longing heart.