The Birthing of Love

Every year we celebrate the Christmas season, we do so with our regular traditions. Some of us traveling, some staying home to await Santa's arrival. Most of us focusing on family while others focus on the family we've created wherever we may be. I would venture to guess that all of us focus at one point or another on the traditional Christmas story.

In Luke's story, we are told about the shepherds hurrying off to find the baby and there he was "lying in the manger." Matthew reports simply that Mary gave birth to a son and they called him Jesus. Neither Mark nor John really focus on Jesus' birth and thus from these four stories we get a picture of this family in a stable with a baby resting peacefully in a little manger.

I can't shake the thought that this wonderful, picturesque family experience isn't at all the way it happened. My more realistic mind's eye portrait is of a family in a cave since that was where the people tended to live in those days. Maybe a cave is wishful thinking on my part. Maybe they really were outside in the cold. I do think it was cold as desert nights do tend to get fairly chilly. The joyful images just aren't there with me. I think of a woman in tears and not tears of joy. I think of her sheer pain! Her wonder as to when the pain will stop and why God did this to her! I think of screams and lots of them--almost the blood curdling kind. I think of poor Joseph who likely had to play midwife to a woman he loved and whose pain he could not silence. I think of the whole situation being so far less than the ideal we've created for our traditions. And yet, it is equally as beautiful because in all of these painful and wrenching moments, love at its essence is being birthed.

Love says the scripture, "is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not proud, rude or self-seeking, not easily angered, not a record-keeper, rejoicing with the truth, protecting, trusting, hoping and persevering." I have to think though that before we get to experience the picturesque qualities of love, we like the holy family must go through the pangs of birth.

I've run into so many people this season who haven't known the Christmas spirit, (I include myself this year). The things of our lives may be causing us to experience flailing, painful birth-like pangs. But, this I know. Those trying experiences of our days, the stresses brought our way, are simply gifts of birth that lead us to the idyllic picture of love at work in our lives.

So my prayer for each of us this week, whether we are able to claim the spirit of Christmas or not, is that we will claim the spirit of love! Happy Christmas to all and love to everyone! Amen.