The Mission of Christmas

Christmas is in actual fact a missionary story. As a matter of fact it is the greatest of all missionary stories. Perhaps that's why I love it so. To understand it, you have to move beyond the virgin birth, past the manger, the angels singing, the shepherds visiting and the wise men bringing gifts. At its heart it is all about entering into someone else's world. Being the message. It's God wearing our clothes. Divinity becoming a baby! In all of history there has never been such a daring endeavor for never was there such a gulf between the one who went and those to whom he was sent. He was the missionary « par excellence ». He set aside all he was, all he deserved, in order to become one of us. Helpless. Fragile. Vulnerable. Dependent. And downright smelly at times. He who was rich became poor so that we who were poor could become rich. Christmas should be the time like none other when we ask ourselves the question why ? Why did he do it? And once we understand even a modicum of that kind of love, we have to then ask what is my response to this ridiculously wonderful incarnation? Maybe that's in part why this year I choose to enter another world, a world of orphans, the poor and the hopeless. Maybe clothed in my vulnerablility and fragility they can see and grasp the story of the day God became a baby.