A Quiet Power

Luke 2:1-20

This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

--Luke 2:12

Infant holy, infant lowly, for his bed a cattle stall;

Oxen lowing, little knowing Christ the child is Lord of all... 

In January of 1990, I visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  Because of violence in the area, we weren’t sure we were going to be able to visit the traditional birthplace of Jesus, but, the guns fell silent for a moment and we were able to slip in.  The Church of the Nativity is an interesting place.  The large main entrance doors were, for the most part, blocked up in the Middle Ages to keep marauding Crusaders from riding their horses into the church (so we were told).  You have to stoop to get inside the narrow opening that was left unblocked (unless you are short like I am).  The sanctuary, as I remember it, was cold and stark.  But, the grotto beneath the church, which tradition says, marks the place of the manger, is warm and beautiful and filled with flickering candlelight.  We only stayed a few minutes in the quiet, womblike place before our guide hurried us back to the bus.  The guns had woken up in the hillsides around the little town. It was time for us to go.

To this day, I am always awed by the contrast of the child born in a cattle stall to be Lord of all. Awed by the Prince of Peace born into a world so frequently torn by gunfire, violence and bloodshed.  Awed by the quiet power of the small, peasant child who grew up to challenge earthly and heavenly principalities and powers and defeat their machinations by dying on a cross and rising again on the third day.

This morning, as my daughter and I were watching a retrospective of 2018 on one of the morning news shows, I heard again the reverberating sound of the gunfire in the Bethlehem hills.  Except now, the sound of violence was echoing through schools and nightclubs, on city streets and synagogues; in the cries of hatred for those who are different because of the color of their skin, or their religion or their place of origin.  Like the Holy Family forced to walk the 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem by the decree of Caesar, refugees and immigrants still wander across the globe due to decisions and actions of principalities and powers beyond their control.

More than ever, we need the quiet power of the child born in the manger!  More than ever, we need this sign of God’s presence with us, accompanying us and dying for us in a dangerous and divided world.  More than ever, we need this sign that God’s love and life truly are stronger than all the violence and hatred perpetrated by the principalities and powers that appear to be in control of our worlds.  More than ever, we need to be reminded that, as people of faith, we walk in the quiet power of the Christ-child and participate in God’s work of reconciling us to one another and to God.

…Thus rejoicing, free from sorrow, praises voicing, greet the morrow:

Christ the child was born for YOU!  Christ the child was born for you!  

Blessed Christmas,

Bishop Mike.

Thank-you for reading. This Christmastime, pray for that peace which passes all human understanding to be born in the hearts and minds of all people, and might grow among the peoples of the world.