A Not-Silent Night

Several years ago–four, to be exact–I sat in a Christmas Eve service, feeling as I never had before. I was there with my own round, pregnant belly, living in the expectation of my own blessed child. I was overcome–Christmas shifted for me that year. In thinking about my own anxieties about birth, I thought about Mary in that stable. In thinking about the overwhelming love I already felt for my child, I thought what it must have been for Mary to give up Jesus. In the quiet of that church, I found tears streaming down my face.

While I love our beautiful Christmas carols, I am often struck by how they get so much so wrong. Holy night–right on target. Silent night–are you kidding me? Are we supposed to believe that Mary’s birth was supernaturally painless, or that Jesus didn’t cry out in hunger every few hours like every other new born? The Bible doesn’t go into detail about Christ’s entrance into this world, and maybe every thing about it was supernatural, but I don’t think this is true. It’s the human-ness of Jesus as much as the God-ness that matters. The messiness, the pain–they are all part of the miracle, all part of the love.

I suppose that the recognition of the reality of birth and new baby could make us feel a little sad, or a little less miraculous, but for me, it does the complete opposite. It makes me feel even more connected to the Christmas story, even more moved by the narrative of Christ’s life. The idea of a father giving his son is a powerful one, but it is also an abstract one for me. But the idea of the mother giving life to that child, then giving him up, was something that hit me powerfully once I became a mother myself. What love, what joy, what pain. What love, what joy.

Merry Christmas to you all. May you have a holy night, if not a silent one.