The Season of Christmas, more than any other religious festival, has the power to capture heart and imagination. Nostalgia clearly plays a part, but here there is something deeper, something richer, something that answers a forgotten longing.
This longing is beautifully captured in the biblical imagery that takes us from Advent to Christmas and the beginning of a new year.
We are that people who walked in darkness and longed for light. We have, in our doubt and disappointment, lived in a land of deep shadow. Hidden beneath the passing of our days there is a longing for Good News. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness and proclaims salvation.”
We cling to the Christmas story because beneath its timeless familiarity is a truth that illuminates forgotten hope. We recognise that our story, limited as it is, has a grander setting. Our story finds its beginning with the Word who was with God from the beginning. Ours is not an isolated story, for it had its beginning in him through whom all life came to be. We welcome him as the light shining in our darkness. We have, at times, preferred our darkness and neglected to acknowledge him: but still he insists. He offers himself to us as the Word made flesh, living among us. From the humility of his coming he calls us to acceptance. “He came to his own, and his own did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become the children of God.”
Throughout life we struggle to understand who we are, and the lasting meaning of our lives. Let us surrender our questioning to the truth he brings. We are the children of God, called to share a life that was his with the Father from the beginning. “He lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
What we might describe as the nostalgia of Christmas has its place, because it links us to the familiar patterns of life, the memories and places where we have been most comfortable.
As the Christmas story reveals, it was here, in what touches our lives most, that the Son of God was revealed. “Something which has existed from the beginning, that we have heard and seen with our own eyes; that we have touched with our hands: the Word who is life – this is our subject.”
May the Lord reveal himself to us in all that we see, touch and cherish.
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