Advent 4 | Christmas Eve
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
”
When the Miracle Happened
Long we have waited and at last Christ’s coming is near – that “Great little One, whose all-embracing birth lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.”*
The poet Kenneth Steven speaks of Jesus’ quiet arrival:
When the miracle happened it was not
with bright light or fire—
but a farm door with the thick smell of sheep
and a wind tugging at the shutters.There was no sign the world had changed for ever
or that God had taken place;
just a child crying softly in a corner,
and the door open, for those who came to find.**
As we welcome the Child on this Christmas Eve, let us stand in awe. For “God travels wonderful ways with human beings….God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair. He takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous.”
“And this is the wonder of all wonders: God loves the lowly. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Here is Jesus: “Eternity shut in a span.”* O come, let us adore him.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
(Christina Rossetti)
*Robert Crashaw
**Thanks to Jamie Smith for sharing this poem
Karen Wright Marsh, Executive Director