“Put Christ back into Christmas,” we are told, often from the pulpit. “Take time out to pray and meditate upon the Advent season. Don’t be distracted by all the shopping advertisements.” All well and good. But I would also argue the contrary. It’s in the noise of the Christmas season that we find Christ. Mary and Joseph and the Magi sought not to escape from the commotion, the drama, and “noise” surrounding the great moment. They traveled into it.
Consider these scenarios.
- She finally has the Christmas cards addressed. Darn! Not enough stamps, and the post office has run out of the religiously themed ones. Is her address list up-to-date? It took forever to compose the Christmas letter, trying not to leave out any important events and people. She still has to fold the letters, insert them into the envelopes, seal them, and take them to the post office. It’s all such a rush.
When that happens, we should think of Mary. As I once heard Mother Teresa explain to her nuns, “What did Mary do, after she heard that she was to bear the Savior? Did she stay at home and meditate on the great mystery? No, when she heard that her elderly cousin Elizabeth was also with child, she immediately got up to go on a long journey – a very long journey to help her. To wash the pots and pans and do whatever needed to be done.”
Our Christmas cards are messages of love to people that we perhaps have not seen in years. So when the rush of Christmas cards is upon us, we should think of Mary and offer a grateful prayer, for every card we send is a visit to Elizabeth.
- It’s three days before Christmas and the roads are packed. There’s hardly a space available in the mall parking lot. Too late for an Amazon delivery, the husband fears. “Have I got the right gifts for the kids? Or am I spoiling them again? I still haven’t bought the one for my youngest – that doll she asked for – and I almost forgot my wife!” His budget is stretched. He’s worried about his credit card statements come January. It’s all such a rush.
When that happens, we should think of the Magi. If indeed, these “wise men” had come from Persia, it was a journey of over 1,000 miles over often inhospitable terrain, a daunting trip in that era. Uncertain of the kind of greeting that they would receive, especially by the Romans, they pressed on, transiting the Parthians, the Decapolis, crowded marketplaces, hostile stares. It wasn’t an inexpensive journey even for them, and they too sought to bring just the right gifts for the child.
Our travels to the mall and the Christmas sales can be nerve-wracking. Frustrating, too, if that special gift is now out of stock. And then there is the wrapping, the shipping to distant friends and relatives. But at such moments we should remember the Magi, and meld our journey into theirs. We, too, look for the right gifts for the right persons, objects of our love.
- It’s Christmas Eve. The children and wife are asleep at last. But besides the electronic gifts, there are still toys to put together: the tricycle, and wagon. “Why are there so many bolts and screws to this thing? I’m so tired that I can hardly read the directions, and they are so confusing anyway.” In just a few hours, the children will wake him and his wife as they burst into their room on Christmas morning. He doesn’t feel up to the task, but he continues until all is done and ready.
When that happens, we should think of Joseph. After Joseph had done the angel’s bidding and had taken Mary unto himself as his wife, he expected that the child would be born in Nazareth, with Mary’s kinswomen around to help. But no. Caesar commanded him to return to the city of his birth, Bethlehem, the city of David, Joseph’s royal ancestor. And so, Joseph walking and Mary riding, they undertook their long journey along crowded roads, everyone travelling this way and that, to their own cities.
But his trials had just begun. In bustling Bethlehem, his kinsmen and extended family apparently didn’t welcome him or Mary. Instead, Joseph was forced to seek shelter among strangers in an inn. Even worse, there was no room, and all that was available was a cave used as a stable.
Joseph must have felt shame as he took Mary into that cave. Fastened by Jewish law and the command of God to care for his wife and his Davidic son, all he had for them was a stable, reeking perhaps of animals. A feeding trough was all that was available for a cradle. More, there was likely no woman to help with the birth, for if there had been a midwife, surely Mary would have told St. Luke, and that woman would forever have been the patron saint of childbirth.
It was Joseph, we can presume, who had to preside over the delivery. Indeed, St. Joseph may have been the first human ever to have received into his hands the body, soul, and divinity of Christ the Lord, as we can, on the day commemorating His birth.
Joseph, Mary, and the Magi all undertook long, arduous treks in preparation for the coming of the Savior. They did not withdraw into comfortable silence. If we wonder why there is never enough time to relax at Christmas, the truth is that, like Mary, Joseph, and the Magi, we are not supposed to relax! We are to plunge in, to take this journey – a bustling pilgrimage really – to seek out Christ through all confusions of Christmas. It is in that noise that we shall find Him.
