The Poverty of Christmas

Advent brings into focus the first chapter of John and the Word becoming flesh and the Light coming into the world, into the midst of darkness and still shining. Jesus does not shun the darkness or hide from it. Wherever there is darkness, Jesus is. The Jesus Way can be seen in the darkness and followed. That is good to remember in days of darkness and deception. The One who is Light does not avoid those days or dark places. You can bet on Jesus being there. I also like to read the account of the birth of Jesus in Luke and Matthew. The poverty of the manger scene with the work animals and the lowly shepherds surrounding the young parents who barely had enough to live and were bringing a new life to share in their poverty. Jesus could have been born anywhere. He could have been born to royalty, or in a nice home owned by a successful businessman. Or maybe he couldn't have? This choice of birthplace was not random. It was a chosen place just as the parents were chosen. This was who God is. The God who came among the poor because that is only way this God comes. God is among the poor today. You can bet on that, too. Thomas Merton reflecting on the poverty of Christmas wrote, "I am certain when the Lord sees the small point of poverty and extenuation and helplessness to which the monk is reduced, the solitary and man of tears, must come down and be born there in this anguish and make it constantly a point of infinite joy, a seed of peace in the world" Merton was writing of his own vow of poverty but I take it to refer to anyone who is helpless and caught in "extenuating circumstances".  When we sweep the homeless from our urban streets, or keep the migrants on the other side of our walls or let world's homeless live in refugee camps indefinitely is it because we don't recognize the face of Jesus?