Baby Jesus

Even now we simply do not expect
        to find a deity in a stable.
Somehow the setting is all wrong:
     the swaddling clothes too plain,
     the manger too common for the likes of a Savior,
     the straw inelegant,
     the animals, reeking and noisy,
     the whole scene too ordinary for our taste.
And the cast of characters is no better.
With the possible exception of the kings,
        who among them is fit for this night?
     the shepherds? certainly too crude.
     the carpenter too rough.
     the girl too young.
And the baby?
Whoever expected a baby?
Whoever expected the advent of God in a helpless child?
Had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory
        of a legion of angels wielding golden swords,
     the whole world could have been conquered for Christ
        right then and there
     and we in the church—to say nothing of the world!–
        wouldn’t have so much trouble today.
Even now we simply do not expect
        to face the world armed with love.
– Ann Weems

When the miracle happened it was not
with bright light or fire--
but a farm door with the thick smell of sheep
and a wind tugging at the shutters.
 There was no sign the world had changed for ever
or that God had taken place;
just a child crying softly in a corner,
and the door open, for those who came to find.
– Kenneth Steven

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate
And a nova lighting the sky to war.
That time runs out and sun burns late.
 That was no time for a child to be born,
in a land in the crushing grip of Rome:
Honour and truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
 When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth
And by greed and pride the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
– Madeleine L’Engle
 

          In the letters of St. Paul, which are the earliest New Testament writings, there is no suggestion that the birth of Jesus was accompanied by any miracle, and in the Gospel of Mark, which is probably the earliest of the four, the birth plays no part. So a great many biblical scholars would agree with the skeptics that the great nativity stories of Luke and Matthew are simply the legendary accretions, the poetry, of a later generation, and that were we to have been present, we would have seen a birth no more or less marvelous than any other birth.
          But if that is the case, what do we do with the legends of the wise men and the star, the shepherds and the angels and the great hymn of joy that the angels sang? Do we dismiss them as fairy tales, the subject for pageants to sentimentalize over once a year come Christmas, the lovely dream that never came true? Only if we are fools do we do that, although there are many in our age who have done it and there are moments of darkness when each one of us is tempted to do it. A lovely dream. That is all. 
          Who knows what the facts of Jesus' birth actually were? As for myself, the longer I live, the more inclined I am to believe in miracle, the more I suspect that if we had been there at the birth, we might well have seen and heard things that would be hard to reconcile with modern science. But of course that is not the point, because the Gospel writers are not really interested primarily in the facts of the birth but in the significance, the meaning for them of that birth just as the people who love us are not really interested primarily in the facts of our births but in what it meant to them when we were born and how for them the world was never the same again, how their whole lives were charged with new significance. Whether there were ten million angels there or just the woman herself and her husband, when that child was born the whole course of history was changed. That is a fact as hard and blunt as any fact. Art, music, literature, our culture itself, our political institutions, our whole understanding of ourselves and our world—it is impossible to conceive of how differently world history would have developed if that child had not been born. And in terms of faith, much more must be said because for faith, the birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living life. 
– Frederick Buechner
​

Mary

“Mary made nothingness visible. It takes a lot of human growing to find value in the valueless—in small places and simple things and powerless people.” – Joan Chittister
 
[Mary sings] “for every son and daughter who thought God has forgotten the promise to be with them forever, to love them forever, to give them fresh and endless life.” – Barbara Brown Taylor
 
“To look at Mary is to see God’s original plan for humanity. In her, we see the way God wanted us to be. . . . Mary shows us how to receive the marvelous gift of God’s love, and how to respond to God’s redemptive action in our lives.” – Henri Nouwen
 
“Mary is not simply ‘Mary, the Mother of God.’ No, on the contrary. The Mother of God is the image of women everywhere. The Mother of God is Mary, independent woman; Mary, the unmarried mother; Mary, the homeless woman; Mary, the political refugee; Mary, the Third World woman; Mary, the mother of the condemned; Mary, the widow who outlives her child; Mary, the woman of our time who shares the divine plan of salvation; Mary, the bearer of Christ.” – Joan Chittister
 
I have borne many things
As I have borne this son
I have borne the stigma of being
An unwed mother,
Heartache of separation from my parents,
Weight upon my body as we traveled,
The deep joy of carrying this baby in my womb,
And pain upon bringing him into the world.
What will he bear, I wonder
As I look at him now.
– Jenifer Jones

I feel this day secure,
secure as never in my life,
secure beyond all reason
in this cold and darkened place,
this wintered season of the world.
Secure because beside me,
yes, within my very being,
God is present, God is with me,
God is sharing in and bearing
through my child the passing laughter
and the tears that we call life.
God is giving himself to us
in this child he gives to me;
and if this grace, this purity,
this innocence, this love
I hold right now is God,
then I know blessing far beyond
any fear, any hope, any dream
I might have dreamed.
Don’t ask me to explain.
Just kneel, my friend,
beside these shepherds.
Worship him in silence
and be blessed.
– J. Barrie Shepherd
 
I have more titles than I need.
I am the queen of this and the mother of that.
But I want to tell you
I am most at home in your creche.
It is here,
as I contemplate my Son
I have the time
to treasure all these things in my heart.
– John Shea

Joseph

St. Joseph has shown us that even the quietest ordinary acts can be signs of hope in the world, reminders that the world bears within itself the seeds of genuine love.
– Kelly Latimore
 
Each of us can discover in Joseph—the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet, and hidden presence—an intercessor, a support, and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation.
– Pope Francis
 
You may have me kneeling with a staff,
my eyes unwaveringly downward on the child,
a portrait of commitment and readiness.
Or I might have my hands
on the reins of a donkey,
showing my willingness to journey
to keep mother and child safe.
Or I might be standing to the side,
indicating a supportive but secondary role.
I am hard to properly place.
Wherever you put me is fine.
I know what I have to do.
– John Shea

The stable too, in Bethlehem,
​must have been a busy place on Christmas Eve,
what with birth and all its urgencies,
the visiting, worshiping shepherds
and the people they had told,
all crushing in to see.
Yet Joseph simply stands there.
“Don’t just do something,”
is what he calls to us across the centuries,
into the midst of the hustle
and the bustle of this season,
      Don’t just do something,
     stand there.
 – J. Barrie Shepherd


 

Who put Joseph in the back of the stable?
Who dressed him in brown, put a staff in his hand,
     and told him to stand in the back of the crèche,
     background for the magnificent light of the Madonna?
 God-chosen, this man Joseph was faithful
     in spite of the gossip in Nazareth,
     in spite of the danger from Herod.
This man, Joseph, listened to angels
     and it was he who named the Child
     Emmanuel.
Is this a man to be stuck for centuries
     in the back of the stable?
Actually, Joseph probably stood in the doorway
     guarding the mother and child
     or greeting shepherds and kings.
When he wasn’t in the doorway,
     he was probably urging Mary to get some rest,
     gently covering her with his cloak,
     assuring her that he would watch the Child.
Actually, he probably picked the Child up in his arms
     and walked him in the night,
     patting him lovingly
     until he closed his eyes.
– Ann Weems
 
It is important,
crucially important,
that he stand there by that manger,
as he does,
in all his silent misery
of doubt, concern, and fear.
Because if Joseph were not there
there might be no place for us,
for those of us at least–
so many–who recognize and know
that heartache also for our own,
who share that helpless sense
of lostness, of impotence,
in our own lives, our families, our jobs,
in our fearful, threatened world this night.
Yes, in Joseph’s look of anguish
we find our place;
we discover that we too
belong beside the manger:
this manger in which are met
God’s peace and all our wars and fears.
– J. Barrie Shepherd