a work take on the christmas story

WINTER SOLSTICE
THE CHRISTMAS STORY
In the darkest nighttime, in the
coldest and most cheerless time
of the year, at the season of the
winter solstice—the Christ child
can be born. It has to be that way
—light in the darkness. The Sun
dies and the Sun is reborn. It is
the same sun that dies and is
reborn, but from time
immemorial this has represented
a mystery. The child that is
reborn, the Christ child, is
something new, something
promised and long awaited, a
messenger from another realm
for whom the highest part of us
waits. And waits in the darkness
for the coming light.
Every part of the Christmas story
has to do with man. Any man:
you, me. It is an account of real
man as he could be—the God-
Man, the Hu-Man—but it is also
the story of man as he is.
Very few, like the Cherubinic
Wanderer of the Middle Ages
recognise that “I must myself
become Mary and give birth to
Christ.” But all of us owe a debt
for the gift of our lives, a “tax”
that will one day have to be paid.
Sometimes we remember that.
In the way we at present live,
each of us is the Inn, where there
is no room for the Christ child to
be born. The Inn his too full, too
busy, there is too much coming
and going, getting and spending.
It has its own life and knows no
other.
And so the Holy Family who
have come to pay their tax can
find no place for the child to be
born except in the manger, the
place where the animals eat.
Bethlehem also means, “the
house of eating.”
Who are the holy family? The as
yet unborn Christ child, and
Mary, his mother. Mary is called
the Virgin and the meaning of
virgin is unused. Mary is also the
name for the sea: the living water
in which higher forms can exist.
Mary represents the unused
energies in us. These are the
higher energies we disregard and
waste during the course of our
lives. Joseph is not actually a part
of the Holy Family. He is that
part of us that is able to recognise
and care for them, value, guard
and keep them. This he does in
the story.
There are only two animals
present at the birth of the Christ
child, the ox and the ass. They
are alike in that they spend their
lives in patient, unremitting toil
for others. They have nothing of
their own.
In that dark night all the world
was oblivious and asleep, save
for some shepherds in a higher
place—“the hillside,” where they
watched their sheep by night.
Because they were awake they
could be present to a mystery
beyond their understanding—
they heard the angels rejoicing at
the birth of Man.
Something of the magic and
mystery of this story has rung
down through the ages and we
can hear it still. Children are not
strangers to this starry night, this
night of lights and music
emerging from the darkness.
Even now there is still that child
in us which is not buried totally
under the grossness, the
sentimentality, and the lies with
which we at Christmas fill our
“Inn.”
The three wise men followed a
star—the inner light reflected
from above—and travelled from
the East, where the sun rises.
They brought gifts for the divine
child. Gold incorruptible for the
King; frankincense, which when
burns ascends in fragrance, for
the God; but for the man, Jesus, a
bitter herb. For any who would
really be like Jesus must taste
that bitterness.
But the wise men could not
remain and they were obliged to
return to their source “by another
way.” They needed to avoid
Herod, the Tetrarch who wished,
and will always wish, to destroy
that which threatens the status
quo. He is also part of us.
The story is told, the year is
ended. Tomorrow the ordinary
light of day will be a fraction
more, the dark a fraction less.
But for a moment the vault of
heaven opened and the wonder
and the glory could be sensed.
Now we are asleep again. Herod
is safe. The cock crows, the dog
barks, the donkey brays. The
noisy, busy life of the Inn begins
all over again.