Christmas
forces us to rethink things, to reconsider the most basic things.
Maybe what makes it so amazing is how simple the story is, even
though it has its paradoxes.
One
of my favorite authors is G.K. Chesterton. In his work The
Everlasting Man
he recalls that the mystery of Christmas surprises
us from behind,
in ways we would never have expected. It
is as if,
Chesterton says, man
had found an inner room in the very heart of his house, which he had
never suspected, and seen a light from within. It is as if he found
something in the back of his heart that betrayed Him into good.
On
Christmas, God draws close, but He also hides. He comes right up to
you, but almost always just out of your vision. He shows us so much
of Himself, but never everything. This is why God wasn't born in
Jerusalem, in the temple, on a mountain. No, he was born in
Bethlehem (well, actually outside of the city) in a cave used as a
stable.
The
infinite God - eternal, all knowing, who every moment holds the
entire universe in its place - cannot hold up His own head. He who
cannot be caught, He cannot be controlled, He cannot be subdued –
has his arms wrapped up by His mother Mary. The one who created the
drama of history steps into it as a character, the hero of the story.
The
cave of Christ's Nativity, being born in a sense underground, shows
us how humble Jesus is. He is a man for everyone. But the cave
shows us much more, according to Chesterton. The cave helps us to
see that everything we had thought about the universe turns inside
out, that theology is put on its head. The cave represents darkness
and coldness, the sorrowful state of humanity after centuries of
sinfulness – there comes Christ with the light of his truth and the
warmth of his loving forgiveness.
But
the cave also symbolizes protection and privacy from the dangers of
the world. For Chesterton, the cave is a stronghold, a fortress. He
says we announce peace on earth because of a war in heaven. The
victory of that war is foreshadowed here in the cave, which is the
bookend to the Gospel: the empty tomb hewn out of the rock, where the
battle is won. For Chesterton, the wooden manger is fulfilled in the
wood of the Cross, that he pictures as the sword of heaven driving
the mortal blow into the earthly reign of sin. And the spoils of war
are a relationship with that God, a love affair with Him forever in
heaven.
Yes
for Chesterton, Christmas is a revolution and the cave an outpost in
a battlefield for humanity. Do we ourselves join in this battle? Do
we struggle like the early Christians who found themselves so often
in the caves of the catacombs?
Lastly,
that cave is the Church. We come to the Church to find that God is
so very close to us, yet He continues to conceal His mystery. We
come to church to wonder at the paradoxes of our faith. We come to
Church to remember that God is a humble God, a God for everyone, even
our sinful selves. We come to the church to find protection from the
dangers of this world. Here God surrounds us with His infinite
strength. We come to the Church to find ourselves in a stronghold in
the midst of the great battle of good and evil that continues in our
souls.
We
come to Church to find Jesus, to find God. We find Jesus in
unexpected ways. He surprises us with Himself, and yet he continues
to elude our grasp. He allures us. Do not be afraid to let Him
close. Let yourself be drawn into that cave. Let yourself be wooed
by the Lord of Heaven and Earth who fought the war you could not win,
and who invites you to share the joys of victory in Heaven, in this
Mass, in the Eucharist.
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