And How!

Oh Lord, this is not just the degree, the extent, to which You love the world, but also the means - the WAY you love the world. This is how Love loves.

Christmas: this is how Love loves.

What we encounter in that first little Christmas gift, that tiny heartbeat wrapped up in the soft folds of baby fat, is the way of Love. You are the means by which God achieved perfect unity with mankind.

You knew that, however far we extended our desperately grasping hands, searching for the truth of who You are, we could never reach the Infinite. And so You reached down.

Those tiny fingers stretching out soundlessly in sleep are the hands of mercy incarnate; the hands of a Father desperately desiring that we should know that we are not alone; the hands of Emmanuel.

The omnipresent became present; Your presence the greatest gift we could ever receive.

While You gaze into my heart, I gaze into the eyes of a tiny child; my eyes behold what my heart has yearned to believe: I am not alone.

And this exploding satisfaction of a heart inhabited by Love; these shining eyes renewed by the splendour they finally behold - these are the hallmarks of hope restored.

To know You is to know Life.

This fragile existence of mine - so easily shaken, so frequently marred with self-doubt and anxiety and fear, so soon trampled and extinguished - is now made whole, united with eternity Himself.

You loved the world by being born that night. You were the gift given without a word; the Word of God, finally spoken in the breathy, fragmented cry of a little child, shivering and naked.

And You Love the world by being born in each heart - in my heart - the gift we forget and yet by our very joy in living are grateful for.

On this silent night You have spoken - my Life and my Love!

You have found this poor little manger, and You have come to wrap Your tiny hand around my finger.

You love - and how!

I hear an unknown voice call to me -

but oh! familiarity

and Light

all at once present in a little child.

The enigma; the incomprehensible;

this kaleidoscope God

suddenly still

lying in a manger

the One who pacifies me

as I stand baffled by

simplicity

humility

poverty 

grace

Love has a face

draws breath, and cries

That tiny plea echoing eternity's call,

"Come, my beloved,

be here with me!"

Emmanuel, sweet mystery

Unknowable ancient of days

Beheld in one gaze

Sudden stillness

You are

And that's all I need to know

~~~

AMDG