The Nativity Scene is one of the most beloved symbols in Christianity. It is perhaps one of the of the most painted scenes in the history of art. At this time of year, Nativity Scenes are set up with great love and devotion in homes and churches around the world. Before the celebration of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Day, the Nativity Scene with its empty Manger proclaims the anticipation of a people who await the coming of God’s love in their midst. After the celebration of Christ’s birth, when the baby Jesus is placed in the Manger, the Nativity Scene proclaims the presence of a loving God with His people. The birth of Christ into the poverty of the Manger not only proclaims God’s love for us, but it announces boldly the extent to which God will go to show us His love for every single person. Born into absolute poverty, Jesus wishes to show us that there is nothing that will get in the way of His loving us. No matter where we find ourselves in this world, Jesus desires to come among us and be our God. He is truly God with us- or as the scriptures call Him, Emmanuel. In the midst of this ongoing pandemic, when so many people are isolated and alone, often without feeling any sense of hope, the Manger takes on a powerful significance as it announces to all of us God’s desire to be with us in these difficult and troubled times. The Manger reminds us that God will come to us no matter what our situations. To these situations, He will bring real hope. There is only one sign that speaks more powerfully of God’s love for us, and the extent to which He will go to show us that love, and that is the sign of the Cross, which in the context of the pandemic announces that God will even bring life to where we have encountered earthly death.

There are so many ways that God could have arranged to have His Son born among us. If God thought in human ways He might have waited until the twenty-first century for His Son to have been born. He could then have used the easier modern ways of communicating. It would have been so much easier for the Son of God to have been born as the child of the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. All that would be necessary for Him to get the message out, if that had been the case, would be to set up a Facebook page and we could all “friend him” and accept his offer of salvation. Even if we admit that it was necessary for Jesus to have been born two thousand years ago for the sake of saving all the people who have lived during the past two thousand years, it would have been much easier if Jesus had simply been born the son of a Roman Emperor. In this way, the many soldiers of the Roman Army could have simply gone out to the corners of the world to announce that God’s Son had been born and that all people should worship Him.

And yet, God does things so incredibly differently! As we hear proclaimed in the first reading today from the Book of the Prophet Micah, God chooses one of the most insignificant places in Israel for His son to be born. The person to whom His Son is to be born is one of the most insignificant persons in this insignificant village. The Archangel Gabriel announces to a teenage girl, in a male dominated society, that she will be the Mother of God. As a sign of the truth of this message from the angel, Mary is told that her elderly cousin Elizabeth will have a child. Elizabeth also represents someone else who was regarded as having little value in this society. She was unable to conceive and in her old age was seen as baron and having little value and no one to care for her in her old age. Even her husband Zachariah will laugh and doubt that she can have a child. While all the great men of Israel will be trying to figure out where the Messiah will be born, and where this child will be made manifest, we hear in the Gospel today that it is an unborn child who first recognized Christ and leapt at His coming. Herod, the King of Israel, will search for the child and send the Wise Men from the East to look for Him, but it is an unborn child, John the Baptist, who will first recognize Christ and announce His presence to the world. Jesus comes to show His love for all—from the most insignificant to the most powerful—who are able to see His truth. For those alone and isolated, who fear and are in despair this Christmas, it is to them that Jesus wishes to be born and bring hope.

It is the place of Christ’s birth, however, which most beautifully tells of how profound God’s love for each person truly is. Jesus, the Son of God and Creator of the universe, is born in a barn among animals to show us that no matter who we are, He wishes to come to us. Had He been born in a palace, or as the Son of some great emperor, how many of us would feel that we could invite Him to live with us? Born into the poverty of the Manger, Jesus tells us that He desires to come to us no matter where we live or who we are. His poverty proclaims to men and women who live on the streets of cities that they are loved by God. To all of the boys and girls of Canada’s indigenous people who are playing in the far north, Jesus announces that He is with them. For those elderly, isolated from family yet again during this pandemic, the Manger announces that Christ is with them. For the health care workers exhausted by months of overtime, the Nativity proclaims God is with them in their poverty. The Manger is a sign of hope that challenges us to believe that God is with us, no matter what the troubles and challenges of our times and life.

This week, the Manger which awaits the birth of Christ, presents an invitation to all of us to prepare our hearts to receive Christ with the joy, hope and confidence that He loves us so much that He will joyfully come to be born in every heart that will welcome Him. In the midst of this pandemic, these last days of Advent are a wonderful time for us to find hope in these difficult times. All who believe that they are alone and without hope are invited to contemplate before the empty Manger that the only thing that is preventing God from entering our hearts is our lack of faith in His love for us. Mary provides the most beautiful example of a Christian who has allowed God to come to her. Receiving the invitation of the Archangel Gabriel to believe that Jesus wished to come to her, Mary gave her “yes” to God and by doing so made Him present to the world. Even before His birth, her openness to God’s will allows Jesus to be made manifest through Mary. As Christians, we are called to model our lives on Mary. No matter who we are, we are called to believe in the power of God’s love and mercy to transform our lives and to bring hope into difficult situations. By giving our own “yes” to God, we are to allow His presence to radiate in our lives in the same way that Mary does. This means believing in the power of God’s presence and His desire to really be present in our lives amongst the trials and tribulations that we all face. We can all give Christ a body to dwell in by making the words of our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews our own by assenting to the words: “I have come to do your will.” This is what Mary does, it is what so many who have brought Christ to others in this pandemic have done, and it is what we are all invited to do.

What is claimed to be the authentic Manger of Jesus can be visited in the Church of Saint Mary Major in Rome. It lies under the altar of this great Roman Basilica. There is absolutely nothing special about this poor wooden box from which animals once ate. It is so beautiful because it tells us that God would do anything and go anywhere to allow us to know of His loving presence in our lives. It was actually Saint Francis, who grasped the profound nature of God’s love and the mystery of His coming to us in our poverty, who helped to make the Manger scenes such a beautiful symbol of the hope we are all to know of God being with us in troubled and difficult times. All that is required for God to come to us in our situations is that we might welcome Him and turn away from despair. There is a prayer that people who visit the Basilica are invited to say as they kneel before the Manger is Saint Mary Major. The prayer speaks about how the wooden Manger points to the wooden Cross on which Christ will make His ultimate sacrifice for our sins and win for us the gift of eternal life. The Cross is the ultimate reason for our hope in difficult times. It proclaims that even if we have lost a loved one in this time of pandemic, Jesus will raise them up and restore them to life. The Cross and the Manger tell us that Jesus came into the world with nothing and left with nothing of material value. The poverty of His life and death proclaims to us what His mission is about. Jesus has come among us to announce God’s unconditional love for all people. No matter what we face, Jesus is with us. God has come among us in His Son, Jesus Christ, to give you and me hope and salvation and to be with us throughout all the challenges and trials of life until the end of time.  He is to be the source of all our hope. As the Psalm proclaims so beautifully, Jesus has come among us “to restore us, to allow His face to shine upon us, so that we might be saved.”

In these last few days that remain to us to prepare for Christ’s coming among us, let us prepare our own hearts so that they may be open to the hope which Jesus comes to bring us in these difficult times. To do this, we need to take Mary as our example. Giving our “yes” to God, we are invited to let our hearts and bodies be a place where He is born. In doing so, may we bring Him through our own acts of charity to all who need an expression of God’s love this Christmas. As Mary brought Christ through the visitation, perhaps each of us could think how we could bring Christ to someone isolated and alone this Christmas—even if it is done through a phone call or act of kindness done at a distance. By allowing God’s love to transform us, may we like Mary bring Christ’s hope to those to whom we are sent this Christmas. May we also experience the hope that Christ brings, by making our own hearts cradles where Christ may allow the hope of His birth to shine.

May God bless all of us with His hope this Christmas and throughout 2022.

Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor—St. Peter’s Parish—Toronto, Ontario

This reflection based on the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C: Micah 5: 1-4a; Psalm 80; Hebrews 10: 5-10; and Luke 1:39-45.