There are two Christmas stories. The first, which we are very familiar with, tells of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in majestic, festive and grand tones. Hark the herald angels sing! Angels sing. Stars shine. Kings travel from afar. Mighty wonders fill the nights with light and glory.
It’s all there in the scriptures, a tale of God’s power and might, come to abide with us, to lift us out of darkness, winter, despair, and lack of hope in the future. Old prophecies are brought to life, God’s wonders are proclaimed, messianic expectations fulfilled. Many of us are thrilled by this story of God’s saving power and ability to create anew with a resounding show of force for good.
There is also, nicely hidden in the same narratives, a second parallel story. The story of a little child, born in a cave outside town, in the middle of a bitterly cold night in the Middle East. Warmed by animals, nursed by a couple of travellers from Nazareth, visited by shepherds with the smell of sheep. A birth as unnoticed as the millions of children born in obscurity even in our days. No angels, no kings, no gold or frankincense.
A simple, small birth. So small that many do not recognise it as anything different. Even when the child grows and goes to his village synagogue people fail to see anything particularly majestic about this child from Nazareth. Yet, this is the Christmas story… the nondescript, quiet, utterly normal, and humble entrance of God into the human journey. And therein also lies greatness, that this baby, hidden in plain sight, dwells among us, pitches tent with the forgotten ones among us, and grows up with and among us: verbum dei caro factum est!
Christmas is also allowing for God to quietly touch the mundane despair of everyday life
Both these stories are the same story. It is a question of emphasis, the angle from which we see things. Both allow for the miraculous, the heavenly and at the same time completely earthly experience that is Christmas, the advent of the Messiah, Jesus.
At the start of Advent we do not simply light a first candle of four. We also have a choice to make. Which story of Christmas do I identify most with? For some of us, the sheer joy of shopping, gift giving and receiving, decorating, lighting up and going out of our way to do something grand and different makes of Christmas a great event to look forward to in the midst of our short winters. Christmas seen this way retains its magical, ethereal, out-of-this-world sense of awe. And we sure need that to lift our weary hearts!
We might also choose to take up Advent’s invitation to enter into the small side of Christmas. The simple invitation to be present to others, to journey with those feeling lost and alone; to see the God of little things, the irruption of the majesty of God into the most humble of experiences: the messy, scandalous birth of a child in squalor, excluded from the town of Bethlehem.
Here Christmas is also allowing for God to quietly touch the mundane despair of everyday life, with the ray of hope that is brought forth through the birth of Jesus, the God who dwells among us: Emmanu – El!
Fr Frankie Cini is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul