It is often said at Christmastime that Jesus is born into
every family and every heart. But these “births” must not make us forget the
primordial, massive fact that Jesus was born of Mary among a people that at the
time were dominated by the greatest empire of the age. If we forget that fact,
the birth of Jesus becomes an abstraction, a symbol, a cipher.… To the eyes of
Christians, the incarnation is the irruption of God into human history: an
incarnation into littleness and service in the midst of the overbearing power
exercised by the mighty of this world; an irruption that smells of the stable….
Gustavo Gutiérrez The God of Life, trans. Matthew J.
O’Connell (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 85.
___________________________
Jesus is Born!
Emmanuel is here!
The Word has become flesh and dwells among us.
But where do we find him?
This one who came to bring down the mighty
And lift up the poor?
Where does he abide?
Where is he to be found?
It is not enough to say he dwells in human hearts.
That he “tents” in our souls
A reoccurring incarnation
When God came he came into history, into Palestine
Into a land of oppression and poverty
Into the pain and miseries of humankind
If he were to incarnate today, where would he be born?
Not in places of power and wealth
Not this one
Who chose not Jerusalem but Bethlehem
Not a palace but a barn
Perhaps he would arrive in Bethlehem again
Where walled in, oppressed, and poor people
struggle to survive
Perhaps he would be born in a doorway
On a cold and rain-swept street In America
Or in the rubble of a home in Ukraine or Gaza
Anywhere there is loss and pain, oppression and violence
Jesus came to be God with us
He came to be an irruption and a disruption
To break down the systems of power and wealth
Oppression and suppression
Jesus’ place is with those very people the world would
discard
The poor. The
powerless. The “different.” The addicted
and afflicted.
If we would worship him,
We must worship him there
In places and people unexpected
We do not take Jesus there (as we sometimes think)
We are taken there by the Christ in us
To love, and honor
The Word
Incarnate in unexpected people
Adoring him, like the Magi
And offering gifts
Of Compassion, Kindness, and Forgiveness
And receiving back
The precious gift that is the child
Born under a wandering star
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