Dear Friends in Christ,

This week, I finally managed to get our nativity set out at the house. It’s a wooden one made by a Chinese Christian family in Beijing so it has a distinctly Eastern character and the fact that it was made by a family that endured great hardship for their faith makes it even more meaningful.

There’s something pedestrian yet moving about the simple task of getting out a nativity set.

You carry a cow or a sheep and think, “Oh how cute.” You get out a king and think, “Which one is this? Gaspar? Melchior? Balthazar?”

You smile as you think of some pageant, party, or partner from Christmases past.

Then you find the angel and she’s beautiful. You pull out the statue of Joseph and he says about as much as he does in the Bible.

You remember a story about your own dad at Christmas.

Then you get out the Blessed Mother. Perhaps you pause a second longer and linger on her gaze a bit. She’s tired though so don’t keep her up too long.

It’s hard to look at her and not see your own mother, too.

Then you find Jesus. You check to make sure you’ve not broken him.

Anyhow—it’s a bit of a ritual isn’t it? Its own kind of lovely, strange liturgy where Christ is revealed—not in bread and wine but maybe in wood or stone or papier-mâché or some other medium.

Here’s the thing, though. I can imagine Jesus saying to his father, “It’s a strange thing, holding them isn’t it?”

Yet that’s what he does—it’s what he comes among us to do. He comes to carry us gently and with loving care. He looks for the broken. He even cherishes the chips and cracks and flaws that show our wear.

He looks for the shattered and the bruised and the damaged.

He picks up the widow and says, “You are loved.” He picks up the orphan and says, “You are loved, too.”

He picks up the sinner and Saint, the lost and the lonely, the rich young things and the tired jaded ones too, the has-beens, the ne’er do wells, and the know-nothings. He picks up the baby at her first cry and the soldier at his last breath. He picks each and every one of us up, looks with compassion, and says “You are loved.”

May you hear God saying you are loved this holy season and know you, too, are held with hope.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert