THOUGHTS TO PONDER

‘Who is he in yonder stall?

At his feet the oxen fall…

As we once again prepare for Advent and the festival of Christmas, it’s worth taking a moment to keep what we’re doing in perspective. This year, as usual, Christmas crept into the shops before the Halloween goodies were off the shelves. The signs are there of a special time ahead. The pressure is on…

Only the most cynical would deny the expectation of a Christmas filled with joy, celebrating, and the hope of a more peaceful world in the year ahead. It may, however, be worth untying the reality from the excesses.

Some Biblical scholars question the nature of the stories around the nativity of Jesus. His birth has no part in Mark’s account – probably the earliest written. Do the myths of the listening shepherds, the angelic song, and the wise men following a star do more than emphasize – with hindsight – the tremendous significance of this baby’s arrival?

Perhaps they are poetic attempts to express the inexpressible – the coming of light into terrible darkness? For sure, history was changed for ever, and art, music, poetry and theology have tried to find a means to describe or depict what that was about. Some of Bach’s music comes pretty close, so, for me, does much poetry. There are moments when one is grasped by a profound sense that this is close to whatever lies at the heart of life. Moments of awareness. Moments when beauty, or love, or suffering open us to a deeper reality. Tillich called that ‘the Ground of our Being’. I haven’t yet found a better definition…

What then are we celebrating at this season? Is it perhaps the birth of innocence, the necessary vulnerability of love, the turning of the world upside down? Are we, like Mary, invited to acknowledge the moments when we have felt the life-giving movement of the Spirit, invited like her to have the courage to live out our hope for the liberation of the oppressed and the poor? Does the hidden-ness of God reveal the reason for all our exploring? We walk into a mystery beyond human explanation.

For a while at least, we draw back from cynicism and disenchantment. We join the chorus of the wise men in Auden’s Oratorio –

To discover how to be human now

Is the reason we follow the star.

Mary McMahon