How distracted I am by the material aspects of Christmas: the gifts and the lights and the shopping and the decorations? I so easily forget the real meaning of Christmas, walking right past that nativity with barely a glance. When was the last time I knelt before the manger? Oh, sure, the baby is cute, the scene is quaint and filled with nostalgia, but what about the mystery? What about the deeper message?
Taking this wee bit of time to meditate, the word I keep coming back to today is SOLIDARITY. I hear a message from the manger, a whisper saying, “I will stand with you. I will walk with you. I will be one of you.” This babe didn’t come to lord it over us. He didn’t come to rule. He didn’t come to demand. He didn’t come to judge. He didn’t come to condemn. If he did, he would not have come as that baby in the manger, but as a conquering hero. The news would’ve been completely different if he didn’t come as this baby. The news would not have been this good news of SOLIDARITY.
This SOLIDARITY mystery was born in the stable but wove its way through all of Jesus’ life and teachings and on into his death and resurrection. Richard Rohr says, “The Crucified One is God’s standing SOLIDARITY with the suffering, the tragedy, and the disaster of all time, and God’s promise that it will not have the final word.” Think about that: God standing with you. Not over you or above you or in front of you…..but with you. God being beside you. God walking hand-in-hand with you. God being within.
As we realize the power in this word, SOLIDARITY, may it move us to stand in SOLIDARITY with those around us. May the Christmas message show us how to stand alongside, walk with, and hold up our neighbor, whoever that neighbor may be. May the Christmas proclamation, that God is among us, rid us of pride and presumption. May the good news of Jesus tear down the belief that I am better than my neighbor. Instead, may the mystery work in me to stand with, learn from, and work alongside. May it move me to SOLIDARITY.
Galatians 3:28 “It makes no difference whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a freeman, a man or a woman, because in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King, you are all one.”
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