Barnes, Stables and crumbs

                                                (This is where He comes)

I have a confession to make.  We haven’t even decorated for Christmas yet this year.  We haven’t gotten the tree, I haven’t put the candles in the window, and there are no boughs of holly strung anywhere.  I haven’t even gotten out the special advent calendar to count down the days to Christmas yet.    You know the one, or maybe have one like, made of felt, with a special piece for each day to count down the days in December.  We’re too many days in December to mention how far behind we are.   

 We’ve had our calendar for years, before our kids were even born.  Back when I used to do it myself after I came home from long hours helping care for other people’s children whom I loved dearly.   Now I watch our kids do the placing and counting down.  Happily, cheerfully most of the time, with the occasional game of give and take, “discussing”   which ones are their favorites this year and who should be able to put them where.  

I used to have visions of us, someday, maybe having these mythical, miracle children with us.  And now here they are. Blessedly.   (Though, to be honest, I’m not sure I ever fully believed it would come true. However, I digress..)

But we are so busy this year, and full of crafts, collections and too quickly passing days, we haven’t had time to quite keep track of its passing yet.  We have been celebrating,  a bit, and preparing, a lot.  Not even with present wrapping or buying, or anything like that.  Not yet. We are preparing gifts of time and some talent.  There are school activities, choir, concerts. and some church activities too.  It’s Advent and Faith, celebrations and lots of music.  It’s busy, but it is  magical, too, at the moments when I stop to remember.  When I see  that’s what the busy is all about, anyway.  

It would probably feel extra special if we came home to a decorated house, I think.  But we haven’t yet.  We’ll get there.  I think.

One thing we have been busy with, in particular, is preparing for our child’s First Reconciliation. It’s not a particularly huge time commitment- some extra at home reading, a few meetings of various sorts, and then a special Saturday coming up for the celebration. 

Yet in December a little extra can seem like a lot.  

Mix in those school concerts and carols and things, and it can send one scrambling to catch up on things like laundry.  

But when I see the messy left behind from these things, I just try to remember.  That just because it’s busy and messy and even a little chaotic also doesn’t mean that it isn’t God-breathed.  

While I thrive on the meaningful, it also  sometimes disrupts the regular, and a lot of the sensibilities we’re often taught to care about.  It’s not that I’m complaining.  I certainly see the value in it all, in what we’re doing.  I just haven’t quite come up for air yet.   That air that is fragrant and melodic and filled with the scent of evergreen and freshly baked cookies.   We will get there, I bet.

But for now I still feel like we’re riding in on two squeaky wheels, in a sleigh full of crumbs and deadlines. I always thought that I loved decorating but I can’t quite bring myself to yet this year.

While I know that  we probably will eventually find the time, I know that not everyone does.  Not every home or person ends up decorating, or celebrating.  Not every year, not every home, not every heart, finds the chance or opportunity, or maybe even has the capacity to trim the trees or deck their hearts or halls.  Some have so much going on, it seems impossible to imagine Christmas, too.  

But here’s the best part.  

Christ didn’t come because we were ready or decorated.  He didn’t come because we had trimmed the trees or readied the house or even set the table.  

He didn’t come because of our traditions.  He came in spite of them, in the middle of it, and maybe even in the absence of them too.   

He came because He was needed, whether we knew it or not.  He didn’t come to a sparkling feast full of joy and celebration.  He was the feast, and came, first, to love.

Regardless if we had filled in the void of His absence with other light or loves, or with the numbness and fillers that only prove to make us more hungry and broken.  He came in spite of it,  in the middle of it, and because of it all.   He came to the stable of our broken lives,  right there next to our need.  Right where we always have  needed Him, and still do.  

 Even if we are sitting at a table where there is a feast, and decorations all around us,  He comes to us.  To every broken or hurting or lonely or full heart, no matter where we sit.   He comes, regardless of any decorations or lack thereof.  

  Christmas can be such  a beautiful time, with lights, decorations and beautiful things all around us.  But I think, maybe we tend to forget that’s not what it’s all about anyway.  Especially when it’s missing. We feel guilty for our lack.  We’re too tired, too weary, too weak.  Things are too chaotic or messy for it to make any sense and don’t often recognize that He wants to come to our undecorated, lowly  barns and stables.  We want to skip right to the end game, to the table feast and to dismiss what’s broken or messy along the way.  We consider them as complete distractions.  We think we might shove them in the closet of our minds, that we should “get ourselves together” in order  to celebrate Christmas.  

While we can and sometimes should prepare ourselves, it isn’t actually a prerequisite for His coming.   Or for celebrating His coming all over again. 

He comes when it’s broken.  He comes because it’s broken. He comes, and blessedly,  He comes before we decorate or even realize our need.   He comes.

We might not want to accept that our discomfort or mess isn’t just a side note, it’s a necessity. We don’t seem to be able to fully recognize that our lack is a herald of His arrival, not a distraction.  We’re prone to think that our own mess, or what’s not right or beautiful yet  means we shouldn’t celebrate.  

But this year, before we’re decorated or we’ve even had the chance to sit beside our own tree with wonder and rest, I can see that we’re doing what we were meant to this year. In the middle of all of the not-yet-preparing, we’ve really never been so prepared.    

The one thing we’ve been busy participating in? Reconciliation? Amidst all of our scattered Christmas books and crafts, papers from school, unfinished (or not-even-started) projects, there sits books and papers for the whole family, about Reconciliation.     ​​​​​​

What better thing to remember at Christmas than reconciliation? That Christ came to reconcile man to God, not just in-spite of things being broken, but because of it.  What does Reconciliation mean but to be re-united, and  re-connected to God.  We all have things, thoughts, situation, and circumstances that have tried to separate us from God. And From our eternal purpose to know Him.  

Though we are like an unlikely hostess to an unexpected guest, somehow, wherever we have been wearily traveling to, in our sleigh full of crumbs, He inexplicably, delightedly, finds us there.  

That messy, undecorated stable, and even the long journey to get there, they become our meeting place with God, too.  Our need turns into a birthing party, where He comes to join us in our story, to be welcomed, to be held, and to celebrate life with us again, too.  

He comes, with His light and His love. With tidings of comfort and joy because it is exactly what we need and lack. 

He does not come so that we might clean ourselves up first,  or fix things alone, but so that He might do the fixing up with His work of redemption.  With His presence and with His Love.  With the light of His brilliance, He lights up our dark stables, He cleans out our stables, lightens our hearts, and floods them with Love.  His love is indeed, a powerful and forgiving force, full of kindness and love, with  compassion, and overflowing with goodness.  

Decorations aside, that is the most beautiful thing of all.

So if you can’t manage to decorate like you might want this year, or to make the beautiful things that you think you should,  or to even get a little closer to “together”, it’s okay.   If you’re too tired or overwhelmed to fix the messy things that are strewn about you or unable to even clean up all the crumbs because you’re just trying to get yourself together, it’s okay.  

And please remember. 

That’s what He came for.  You’re what He came for.  Not  in spite of your lacks or needs, but because of them.  He comes, anyway, and quite regardless of….anything else.  

Because of love.  Because He is with us in both the mundane as well as the eternal joys.  Because where school and work and deadlines and crumbs and undone projects and meetings meet, we still meet God.  Because that’s how He works.  

He doesn’t need our outward adornment, He just wants our hearts.  We can  stop  judging ourselves for our lack and just meet  God in our need.  In the stables of our hearts, without decoration of any kind.  Meet Him, who loved us enough to come.   Without all of the decorations or swagger or swag, but with the full force of His Love. With everything we need. 

He came with the light of His Love and brought it to the whole world.  He can turn our stables into a place of His presence, our hearts into an altar of His love, and we don’t have to do it alone.  Just crack open the door, and let Him in. To the messy stable of our own hearts.

Christ, invited in.  That is Christmas.  

To be reconciled to how you were created to be- know and connected to God.  Regardless of…  anything. Because of Christ. 

 I got to see it again today.  As we celebrated that First  Reconciliation.  One soul reconnecting with God.  Regardless of how or where or when, it’s beautiful.  How do I know? It is the story of Christmas after all, isn’t it? 

As we walked out of church, I snapped a picture, passing by the baptismal font, pausing for a moment. It was a quick snap, trying to take it all but wanting also to capture it.  That’s when I saw it.   There, in picture form, was exactly what I had been trying to say all week as I wrote this.  Right above my child, with  light streaming in all around us, was a stained glass window.  It flowed in the afternoon sun.  

What scene, you should ask? None other than Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, together in that stable, on the night of His glorious birth.  There was a glow about the whole  picture, and about my child, too.   I could practically see the tangible gift I’d been trying so hard to describe.  The gift of reconciliation, the gift of life, the gift  of His Love.  I burst into tears.  It is the story of Christmas after all, isn’t it? 

Maybe now we’ll get that tree. But even if we don’t, it’ll be alright.   We’re still decorated, still washed in His love.  It’ll be alright, because in Him, we already are. 

Christ the child comes for you, and for your child too. 

“Glory to God in the highest, and ON EARTH, Peace to people of good will.” 

You are, His people of good will.  With or without decorations, or trees, or lights of any kind, or even candles in your window.   

His glory comes to your earth, to your messy square of dirt, to your untidy stable.  Let Him do the clean-up,the fix up and decorating. Let Him fill it all with the light of His glorious love.  

That’s what He came for, after all, isn’t it? Yes, yes it is.