What Child Is This?

What child is this? the song asks.
Do you see what I see? asks another. 
O, come let us adore him, another hymn suggests.

Can you seek Christ through all that falderal - the red and green and gold, the blue and silver, the overkill of light displays and balloon characters in front yards - can you see Him? Can you smell his fresh soft skin just birthed into a cradle of hay? Did his mother massage his skin with oil to keep it soft?

Can you, if woman, remember the pain of giving birth, a pain so extraordinary it has no equal, but it births a reward unequaled - a baby, a fresh, clean soul, a new hope, a new spirit to love? Surely the Holy Mother had to worry about breast feeding, waiting for the milk to come in. Surely there were no baby bottles with nipples then. How could Mother Mary prepare for Him when her spouse was unable to find a proper place, not even a bed to receive the child on this earth. 

There was nothing kingly or royal about getting the Christ child birthed. In fact, Mary’s son was born in a real stable, not a fancy barn fit for a racehorse, nor what the great Byzantine and Renaissance artists created to be worthy of the heir of David, as Giovanni Papini wrote: “as if ashamed that their God should have lain down in poverty and dirt. A real stable is the prison of animals who work for man”. It is filthy, filled with bird poop, rats, insects, flies - have you ever been bitten by a horse fly? One doesn’t forget that. Papini noted the place where Jesus birthed was the filthiest place in the world, an earthly pigsty with a stench no perfume or fragrant oil could hide.

But listen to the choir of angels from above, surrounding the animal’s food-trough with their Alleluias - and shielding the Holy Family with their giant white wings. Can you squeeze into the massive crowds of us, of those who are still anxious to honor this tremendous birth of love, who see from afar, though a memory that Matthew and Luke painted for us in simple words? Can you - as did the supposedly exotically robed gold and silver crown-wearing visitors from the East on their smelly camels - be in awe and unload your arms filled with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh as curious dogs and goats nip at your long robes? Can you create your own vision of that night, that day, when the moon surely shown its brightest, and the morning sun surely danced with its tongues of fire, filtered, and colored by the dust of a busy desert, but aware that it was giving light to that first moment when true light appeared on this planet? What a time that must have been 

In the land of Judah, which Micah had fore warned that out of Judah, out of Bethlehem, Ephrathah, would come a ruler to be the shepherd of his people, we are told there were Shepherds watching over fields of sheep. They had the night shift. They surely drew their simple rough robes around them in the night air, although I was told when I was in Jerusalem, shepherds were not outside at night, but inside the two- or three-story caves which they shared with their herds and families normally, as it was cold winter, not a warm summer eve. But it is credited to these shepherds, these sheep herders, also called “pastors”, to have first seen the oversized star that glimmered in a brightness they had never seen, and surely, they gasped as we would have at a shooting star or ball of light soaring toward earth like a comet. It was the Star of Wonder, Star of Night, Star of Royal Beauty Bright that marked the spot. It was This Star that said, wake up, the time has come! He, the King and Savior, has arrived!

Now many probably didn’t know what the star was referring to, but they knew it was something special, definitely over-sized for a normal star, and, whether fearful or frightening or not, these shepherds began to follow it from their spots, as did the royals on camels from the Far East who, on trade crossroads at the time, turned their beasts toward that very same star. I wonder if Herod and Pilate noticed the star right off. Herod the Great was designated as a Roman “client king” of Judea in the Herodian kingdom. (I must admit in my passionate search for my ancestry, I discovered we are directly kin to Herod as are probably most of us in the long run, and even Nero and Julius Caesar and others of sorts.  But that doesn’t mean we have to agree with or like our ancestors. I am also frequently in the family of the good friend, Arimathea, who gave up his tomb for Jesus.)

Herod, also known by the nickname, “Antipas”, was of Arab origin but a practicing Jew, and was appointed by a Roman to be a tetrarch which means, and I didn’t know this, ruler of a quarter one-fourth, two bits. (That was my son’s knick-name in his youth.) He was quite a builder of massive fortresses and splendid cities, and his pride and joy was the great palace the Herodium in the Judean desert. He was also a close friend of Mark Antony, who gave him the tetrarch role, and of course the most grandiose of his accomplishments, the Temple and he patronized and became president of the Olympic Games. But somehow, Herod feared that Star and what it meant.

The clinker - the salvation - the wise decision was that of the Eastern Visitors, could have been Kings but probably more correctly were called Astrologers or Magi - that’s what the Old Testament prophecies called them - their numbers ranging from three in our tradition to twelve in the Syriac churches. They were wise men, scholars who paid attention to the stars, and make nativity scenes more interesting. On paying homage to Herod, they felt something strange, and avoided telling him where the birth had been since they had been there, seen that. They had arrived from exotic places and knew the star was something magical, something different, something filled with hope. 

In the Arena of Scrovegni chapel attached to the Augustinian Monastery in Padua, Italy, there is a great painting in a series by Giotto, the extraordinary Early Renaissance artist and my favorite. It is a depiction of the holy nativity scene, that distinctly includes three Magi of various ages: an old white bearded one who offers gold, hailed from modern Turkey, and was first in line to kneel to Christ. There was Melchior, middle-aged, who offered frankincense from his native Arabia, and Balthazar was the youngster, black-skinned, with myrrh from modern south Yemen. Three stations of man, so to speak. Western Christianity, especially in Latin America, celebrate the coming of the three kings after 12 Days of Christmas, or Epiphany. Los Reyes Magos bring gifts to children rather than a fat white bearded Santa Claus who depends on a sleigh drawn by reindeer, one with a red nose. Children, who have never seen a camel, leave hay and water outside the door to feed the camels. which don’t even exist in South America, but still the three Magi will bring them gifts of their dreams. It seems to have much more sense than our sort of out-of-control Santa Clause secrets and drama.

The great gift, the one that was for all of us, whether we believe it or not, whether we love or not, whether we have faith or not, is that Jesus the Christ was born on a day somewhere in Bethlehem, in the poorest possible, filthy barn, in the land of Judah, as was prophesied in the Old Testament. However it happened, with sheep or kings or cows or dogs, it is the basis of our joy and love and hope. 

Jesus came to show us that God had not forgotten us. On the contrary. If we open our hearts and souls to Him, and take care of those suffering, poor, miserable, lost, and lonely, then we are getting a good check by our names. We must believe without doubt that we are always His people and that the best gift we have or can give to others is LOVE, love like the unbreakable one between mother and her baby. Love should be shared with every kind of folk we know - be it a relative, a best friend, an enemy who doesn’t agree with anything we say or believe, a criminal, a police officer who catches us trying to get away with something, an egotist with too much power, or a priest, even those who stray from their vows and do egregious things. 

Above all love must be shared with little children who are innocent and with no defense except us. So, we parents or even childless parents must be filters for our babies and little ones, so they don’t get in the wrong hands, the greedy and violent and abusive hands out for a charge.  Jesus didn’t say it would be easy, but whatever happens in our lives, if we tackle it with love and goodness, it will become just that - Love and Goodness - and we can be continually filled with hope of that day when we too enter the heavens of the Holy One.
Blessed Christmas to you all! 

 ~ Rev

---------------------------------
audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com