This year, in Advent and Christmas, we are doing things a little bit differently - instead of a more traditional "sermon," each week our reflection is going to take the form of story-telling, told from the perspective of someone who was waiting for Jesus.
Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
December 24, 2021 – Christmas Eve
Scripture: Luke 2:1-20
I’m an old woman now, but I still remember that night, so many years ago.
I’m an old woman now, but I was a young girl when that angel appeared to me and told me that God-whose-name-is-holy had chosen me to carry and birth God’s son.
I’ve always loved being in the presence of God-whose-name-is-holy. Even when I was a child, I loved going to the synagogue with my mother, and leaning up against her as our elders and rabbis told stories about how God created the heavens and the earth, as they told stories about how much God loves people, as they told stories about how God has been with us always, as they taught us that we are to love God with our whole heart and soul and might, as they taught us that we are to love our neighbours as ourselves.
But I also loved being in the presence of God-whose-name-is-holy when I was out in God’s creation – out in the fields and on the hills and beside the big lake. When I was a very little girl, I used to go out with my aunties and cousins; and even when I was a bit older and my mother needed my help around the house, I used to find a way to slip away from her. I always felt closest to God when the water was lapping at my feet, the sun was shining down on me, and the scent of flowers was carried on the wind.
That day when the angel appeared, I was out there on the hills. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to escape outside – my parents and Joseph’s parents had arranged for us to be married, and soon I was going to have a house and a family of my own to tend to.
But there I was, bare feet on the grass and the wind bowing in my hair, when suddenly an angel stood in front of me. You know, no matter how many times I’ve tried, I can’t quite remember what that angel looked like. What I do remember was how I felt. I felt scared because I knew that this wasn’t a part of the world I could see and touch, but at the same time I felt awe and wonder, and I knew that whoever this being was, they loved me. Love just radiated out from them.
The angel spoke to me. The rabbis at the synagogue told me that it must have been the angel Gabriel, God’s messenger. Gabriel spoke and told me not to be afraid. And Gabriel told me that God loved so so very deeply. And Gabriel told me that God had chosen me to carry and give birth to God’s son, if only I would agree to do so.
You can only imagine what I was feeling in that moment. No matter what he said, I was still a bit afraid of Gabriel, but it was more like the awe that you feel in front of something that you don’t quite understand, but that you know is holy. I was also afraid of my parents and Joseph – what were they going to say? But I also knew that God loved me, and that God has always protected God’s people. I was ready to do what God asked me to do. And so I said to that angel, “Here am I, the servant of God-whose-name-is-holy. Let it be with me according to your word.”
From that beautiful moment on the hillside, I had to go tell my parents, then they had to tell Joseph’s parents. At first, they were going to break our engagement, and I started to ponder raising this child alone, and how I was going to have to love this baby enough for two parents. But then all of a sudden the engagement was back on again. Joseph told me later that an angel had appeared to him too, and told him that he had been chosen to be the father of the son of God-whose-name-is-holy.
I felt safer after that, knowing that I was going to be married to a person who also loved and respected God-whose-name-is-holy.
The months passed, and my belly grew bigger. I felt the baby start to move inside me. I sang the baby inside me the same songs that my mother had sung to me. I told the baby inside me the same stories about God that I had heard in the synagogue. That baby was loved for many moons before he was born.
Then, just when I thought that my belly couldn’t possibly stretch any bigger, we had to make a journey from Nazareth where we lived to Bethlehem. There was to be a census – a counting of the people – I don’t know why we had to be counted, since we are all known to God-whose-name-is-holy, and surely that is the only perspective that really matters. But because Joseph was descended from King David, who was descended from Judah, son of Jacob, we had to travel from Galilee south to the land of Judah, to the city of Bethlehem in order to be counted.
It was a long journey of many days; and when we got there, the town was so busy with so many people who had traveled from so many different places to be counted. We finally found a place to sleep, and it was the place where the animals also sleep. There were so many people coming and going, but this place, surrounded by donkeys and cows – it was like an oasis of peace.
And then there, in that strange city in a dark night, it as time for my baby to be born. There was a sudden pain, and the waters that my mother told me about came, and Joseph went out to fetch a midwife. Then there was more pain… so much pain… but then it was over. And there was a little scrap of a baby, shrieking his lungs out at the shock of the air. I know that your songs like to say, “The Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes,” but believe you me, he was every bit of a real baby who cried, and who needed to be nursed, and who wet his nappies.
But at the same time, there was also something… I can’t quite put my finger on it… but somehow that night had shifted. It was almost as if a light beam had broken through the ceiling, even though I know that was impossible. But somehow, I knew that everything in the world had changed in that moment. The light of my world had been born… the light of the whole world had been born.
And as I looked into the eyes of my baby – into the eyes of God-whose-name-is-holy – my heart broke open, and I fell even more in love with him than I ever thought was possible.
“Lumen Christi”
Eustaquio Santimano
From the Church of St. Mary of the Angels in Singapore
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