While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
Luke 2:6
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
Matthew 2:13
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
Revelation 21:4
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
John 14:1-3
Invitation rests heavy in the air, sprinkled with gold twinkling lights, flickering candles and spiced wine. Gifts carefully wrapped with ribbons and bows wait for eager hands and wide eyes. Turkey sits stuffed swollen full on the side, pigs rolled in their blankets and the hush of sleeping children ready for Father Christmas to come in the dark of night. The night holds its breath, remembering with holy pause the moment 2000 years ago, when the promised King quietly arrived, wrapped in the wrinkled skin and fragile cry of a small newborn.
Christmas paints images of families gathered, lavish feasts with paper hats and cracker jokes; games, King’s speeches, laughter and long journeys for long-awaited love and reunion. Roast dinners, warmed chestnuts and sweet parsnips; Christmas films, chocolate boxes and drifting to sleep under throws as contentment settles in like its own soft blanket.
Abundance is a marker of God’s own heart. The original and best Giver loves to give good gifts to His children including the cherishing of family and connection in all the ways that Christmas can offer.
But 2000 years ago, Jesus was born on the edge of a small town, where community also gathered, returning to family for a census, a counting to be made. That first Christmas was marked too by family travelling and reunion from scattered places. There would have been food, stories, warmth, love and laughter as family returned to their ancestral homes, to where they belonged.
But for Joseph and Mary there was no room. Every place was full. They knocked and asked but doors were closed and they found themselves out on the outskirts, in a small shed, hosted by animals and warmed by straw. And there, Mary gave birth as a young, teenage girl, away from home, with a man who had agreed to stay with her, despite the uncertainty surrounding her pregnancy and how she came to be with child. Without Joseph, Mary would have been alone, ostracised, at risk of stoning to death under Torah-law because of assumed sexual immorality, evidenced by her swollen belly and lack of husband.
Jesus was on the fringes of his own Christmas. He did not arrive in the centre of a family gathering, or a celebratory feast. God heralded his coming by inviting rough-edged shepherds to come and see him, by leading wise men from afar. He was welcomed by strangers, not family. His arrival was quiet, inglorious and holy – wholly set apart – from the start.
Soon after, Jesus and his small family fled as refugees to Egypt, because of infanticide being committed by a murderous King trying to kill Jesus off, threatened by this baby prophesied to reign. All baby boys under the age of 2 years were slaughtered and Jeremiah’s words were fulfilled as mothers wept and refused to be comforted because their children were no more.
You see, our present feasting for joy within the warmth of our homes, celebrating the arrival of this baby King, is a prophetic pointing, a defiant cry for the Great Feast to come; to the time when the Prince of Peace’s kingdom will finally be fully established and the tension between the now and the not yet will be fully resolved. To the time when He will finally wipe away every tear from our eyes, when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things will have passed away. Then, no one will be on the fringes, on the outskirts, with nowhere to stay at Christmas; doors will be opened, tables will be made bigger, He who was born on the outside will bring the outsider right in close, right into the middle. And He is already there, preparing rooms, so it is ready and waiting and a home of belonging for us.
But for now, earth groans with longing, for the ache of Him. Waiting for wrongs to be undone, for the Fall to be unwound. And Jesus, Prince of Peace – makes His arrival into the blood of infants because of murderous rulers. Where babies are still being born into the brutality of war, that is where He chooses to be. Where there are still refugees running across borders to escape slaughter, that is where He remains. He makes His home on the fringes, with the outsider, the alone, the ones with no place or belonging, because that was His own intentional beginning; His own steadfast allegiance from the start. He moves into the darkest corners of humanity because that is why He came. There is no place too dark, nowhere that He will not go. Prince of Peace, the God who weeps, an unquenchable light.
And He arrives into hostels filled with people brittle from cold but who have His image all over them. He is with the tired father, who travels 250 miles for his daughter walking the night’s streets, after a family Christmas gone wrong. He is in the festive party that gathers a vagabond family forged through love, not by blood.
Emmanuel, you are here. You are here. The holiness of You here in the darkness, in the waiting, the aching and the pain. The touchable, flesh and blood holiness of You, in our longings, our struggles, our loneliness. Our beautiful, unquenchable light.