Advent 25

Christmas Day

Thursday, December 25, 2008

1 John 4:7-16

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but the unloving know nothing of God.  For God is love; and his love was disclosed to us in this, that he sent his only Son into the world to bring us life…If God thus loved us, dear friends, we in turn are bound to love one another…God himself dwells in us if we love one another; his love is brought to perfection within us. 

Look!  There He is, sleeping quietly now.  Half an hour ago He was howling, tiny fists batting the air.  But now He sleeps, eyelashes nestling on His cheeks, so trusting.  This tiny newborn doesn’t know that in a few days there will be a price on His head, and He and His parents will become illegal immigrants, moving to Egypt.  He will live an ordinary life, according to the gospels chosen for us, until He is twelve, unaware that He is special. 

What makes the Child special is the Father’s love in giving Him to us.  We are a cantankerous, selfish species, stepping on each other in our efforts to get to the feed trough, pushing each other aside in order to get ahead.  That the Father would send His only Son to us, to me, makes me drop my eyes.  I have never known such love, such trust.  Have you?  Love and tears rise up in me, filling me, overflowing. 

How I love this generous God!  I love Him and the Baby.  I love the parents in their shabby clothes.  I love those stinky shepherds over there, gawking at the Baby.  I even love King Herod today.  And the Roman soldiers who patrol Bethlehem’s streets.  I love you and I love me.  I am filled with love.  I am filled with God. 

Today I will take this overflowing love out into the world and let it spill onto all I meet.  Today I will shout into the sky, to the whole world, “The peace of the Lord be always with you!” And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?  With God’s help, I will come again to the manger to touch the baby’s cheek, and be filled again. 

May we all touch the face of the Child, every day, and share His peace with all we meet. 

May the peace of the Lord be always with you.