“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; … For a child has been born for us, a son given to us… Great will be his authority, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.” (Isaiah 9: 2a, 6a, 7a)

Thus is proclaimed by the prophet on this night of Christmas: a promise that was fulfilled; a hope for shalom that became flesh. This is what generations of Christians remember year after year.

But we tend to forget that it all comes to be under the least likely of conditions.

A girl pregnant out-of-wedlock, but who, paradoxically, said a full “yes” to what could have been her death sentence. No woman in her times had any say about her destiny – least of all motherhood. But this girl was chosen to remind us of the dignity of womanhood, as she not only freely accepted pregnancy, but in so doing, risked the condemnation of her society.

It all comes to be under the least likely of conditions

It is ironic that the man whom she ‘dishonoured’ protected her: not only did he take no vengeance, but he loved her unconditionally. By choosing her as his wife, he commits to raise her child as his own, becoming the man whom all generations will call most “righteous” (Matthew 1:19).

In this union, forged not just between two, but through their individual promises to God, marriage and parenthood are restored, to be not just about blood and societal order, but as the extraordinary honour to participate in God’s love, and thus to raise a child to be all that God had chosen him to be.

But the challenges of the couple did not end with their clever – and graced – outmaneuvering of rigid societal norms. As the time ripens, the couple end up displaced, indirect victims of political oppression. The woman goes into labour in her husband’s ancestral city, but with no indication there was a guest room to welcome her or a midwife to assist her.

Labour is a liminal experience as mother and child are initiated into the mysteries of life-versus-death and of primal bonding. But, in this extreme hour of need, we only know that the same man who knew-her-not, remained present to assist in the birth of a family (cf. Luke 2:16). Paradoxically, Bethlehem, the ‘city of bread’ that estranged the mother and was blind to the birth of her king, still fulfils its sacrosanct duty of hospitality through her lost son, Joseph.

The new family is indeed called “holy” as the couple rectify conditions of injustice not through violence and might, but through their consistent choice to love and receive God’s grace. In love, the child is born: Emmanuel, “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23). Through their participation, God’s promise to heal the world, takes flesh.

It is indeed fitting that the good news is first proclaimed to the outcasts tending flocks in the periphery of town. The most despised of society are the first to receive the blessing: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2:14).

In these times of war, of brutality, confusion and anguish, what the world strives to acquire through her own efforts, God continues to grant gratuitously.

Are we ready to accept our insufficiency… and receive the gift?