I guess we all know the Christmas story very well. Sometimes we so familiar with it that we can easily lose sight of the meaning of the story. And the Christmas story is not just an event that happen 2000 years ago but has meaning for us today in our very lives.
In the Christmas story we hear that there was no room in the inn and so Mary gave birth to Jesus in a manger, a place where the animals were kept. On the one hand, this tells something of God. There in the manger lies God in baby Jesus. God does not impose himself on us. God only comes to offer his love to us.
The baby Jesus is not a threat to us. Yet baby Jesus is a challenge to us. In all this Jesus is asking us to open the doors of our hearts to him. His desire is to live in our hearts.
Jesus knocks at the door of each of our hearts that he may live in us. Will we let him enter?
What does it mean to let Jesus into our hearts?
The answer is found in the visits of the shepherds to the manger. What did they see?
Nothing spectacular really; just a baby wrap in swaddling clothes. What were their expectations? Their lives did not change for they were still poor and would struggle in life. Yet they were filled with joy, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.
What do we see at the manger and what does it mean for us? One way to look at it is to ask ourselves what are our expectations of God and His Church today?
Sometimes we are reluctant to let Jesus enter into our lives because we are just afraid that letting Jesus into our heart might change us. And so we give excuses: “My life is too busy Lord…..I am too tired……there are other things in my life that I like to do.”
Yes, the truth is, to let Jesus in will change us. It will change us for the better, it will transform us the more we open ourselves to him. Christ is our light, our hope our joy, our Saviour. True peace and happiness can only come through him and with him.
It is heaven that Jesus offers us.
That is why God came to live amongst us. That is why Christ desires a room in our hearts. And so when we pray, each time we come to Mass to worship God, each time we forgive others, each time we do an act of kindness in God’s Name, we are opening the doors of our hearts to Jesus, God.
May the humble birth of Jesus reveal to us the loving tenderness of God and help us to become more truly human like him.
Merredin Catholic Parish 