Advent V

Today is Christmas Eve. My thoughts are a bit jumbled but I still want to write something here.

I have thought off and on about my own birth.  There is a picture of my mother a couple of weeks before I was born. Her sister Norma and her husband Bill along with their two children have gathered at their parent's home in Nevada City.  The picture shows my mom hugely ready to be done with this pregnancy, a pregnancy that was a bit of a surprise. After the birth of my older sister my folks wanted another but after some years they gave up, got rid of the baby furniture and moved on with their life. As my mother would tell it, by the time she found a doctor that would agree she was pregnant they had moved from Madera to Grass Valley and was told she would have a baby in the summer of 1953.

July 3rd, 1953, Jones Hospital was where I made my entrance, an entrance complicated by my insistence on arriving butt first that necessitated a C section for safe delivery. The hospital was an old Victorian house built in the 1860's and converted into a hospital in 1907. It presently is a bed and breakfast. My younger sister was born there in 1962, I spent several days there after breaking some bones in one of my feet and I had my tonsils out there.  It was a full functioning hospital allbeit somewhat unorthodox.

So there I was this newborn with big hands and a big nose that caused my mom to giggle. Did she wonder what I was to become? Newborns always cause me to think about what the future holds for the tiny, yet complete human being.  I know I had those thoughts when my two children entered, Abigail with big brown eyes taking it all in and Charlie with a full head of straight up brown hair who was ready to eat.

Much is made of another birth so long ago, a birth complicated by a suspect beginning, a census ordered by a man 1400 miles away and a tiny village unprepared for the inflow of visitors so that no decent room could be had for the birth of a baby that would change my life 2000 years later. While I was born in a huge house that was nearly 100 years old, the Son of God made his earthly appearance in a cave, a stable more suited for animals. Jesus' birth was attended by his teenage mother and a faithful man whose skills in child-birthing were probably next to nothing.  Somehow it all worked out and before long the only folk interested in seeing this new-born were a bunch of ill-kept shepherds who'd received a very special invitation to viewing the baby, the messiah.

As I think about what it might have been like I am reminded of a phrase from "O Little Town of Bethlehem", The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. These words, published in 1868, capture for me a bit of the awe and wonder that Christmas Eve holds for me. It was a tall order for that newborn laying in a stone-hewn manger but, in time, we can see He was up to the task. I can lay all my hopes and fears right there in my feeble understanding of what it might have been for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.

Oh but there is so much more that we can have if we just believe. It is faith that unlocks some of the secrets and mysteries this man Jesus would talk about. If we fast forward, as Scripture does, we will find words and actions of a man so unique in history that we can only bow in awe and wonder, if we believe.

So I am sitting here and thinking about the gifts I've received through believing Jesus was the Son of God. There are so many but I am reminded He told his main group of guys on the night before He died that He was One with the Father and that we are in Him and He is in us.  That right there takes my breath away.  This little babe was to provide a way for us to become new creatures sitting with Him, our elder brother, alongside the Father on His right side. He offers abundant life and enables us, through the giving of a new heart, the ability to listen in and hear our Father speak to us.  This babe, the light of the world and the Word made flesh came to rescue us from darkness. "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned" (Isaiah 9:2).

It is this light I celebrate at the close of a glorious Advent Season.