Learning to see Christmas
Chris Clarke
| 07 Dec 2011
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It had been a long year. All I wanted was for my tired and jaded soul to be stirred by Nelson Cathedral’s midnight Christmas carol service. But, seemingly, it was not to be. Midway through the first carol a noisy, revelling, family group entered the cathedral and, despite the empty seats, chose to sit next to me.
As we celebrated the birth of the Saviour they, clearly uncomfortable, kept up their banter, giggling, pouring scorn on an ex-boyfriend and trying to calculate how long the service would last before they could get out for a smoke.
How could they fail to notice the occasion? Why had they come in the first place? Surely something of the message of the stable born king touched them? Not helping my rising irritation were the increasing stares from others directed at me – ‘please don’t think they are with me’ my eyes pleaded!
And it was in that unexpected moment that my soul was stirred.
Two thousand years earlier, while the angels burst forth in song and heaven clapped its hands for joy, nobody save a few shepherds, their animals and visitors from the East noticed the inauspicious birth of the Saviour King.
The proud Father, keen to celebrate the birth of his Son, was rebuffed by a world that did not see nor care. The defining point of human history unmarked, except by a starburst that also largely went unnoticed.
Who could blame them for not noticing. Jesus the good news, born the bastard son of an unwed teenage girl. Jesus the saviour of the world, born into poverty and obscurity in an unheralded part of the world. Jesus the restorer, himself soon to be a refugee. An inauspicious start for someone of such exceptional parentage.
I was discomfited by the thought that people might think I was with the family who disrupted a carol service. No such scruples for God the Father. Rather than “please don’t think they are with me”, He announces to an oblivious world: “Please notice I am with you!” And in that single act offers the greatest gift of all to every unwed teenage mum, refugee and struggling family – hope.
I am also struck by the sheer grubbiness of the original Christmas – both the lowly birth and the reaction of those around Joseph and Mary, particularly Joseph’s family who were the first to turn him away from the door, presumably so shamed by the pregnant Mary.
In my work I am often confronted with grubbiness. Its most obvious face is that of corruption and exploitation of the poor. It’s more subtle face is that of the rich man or woman who turns a blind eye to the beggar Lazarus at his or her doorstep.
In Pakistan, this Christmas Day, mothers will weep for their dead children. In Somalia parents will be faced with the ‘Sophie’s choice’ of which child do I save? In the refugee camps, relief workers will rise before dawn and somehow muster the stamina to deal with yet another newly arrived exhausted family.
Most will not know the Christmas story but there is the possibility they will experience the Father’s love in the form of a cup of water, a meal and a place to sleep.
And God will notice.
Chris Clarke is CEO World Vision New Zealand and belongs to St George’s Parish, Auckland.
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