If You Were There

If You Were There

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Well, the birthday of the creator of the universe is over. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, even you Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Pagans, Amalakites, Canaanites, Hollywoodites, and any other ites whose souls God has yet to kick the hell out of.
I’m a little late with my column this week, but hey, it’s Christmas.
So, merry Christmas.
This will be short, being that it’s the 26th and I, like you I’m sure, have much to do. Therefore, just a brief word on the birth of the Christ.
Imagine yourself being there, in Israel, at the birthplace of Jesus, at the Inn, seeing the baby boy who would transform the entire world in ways inestimable. Just imagine him, a meager unspectacular birth, no fanfare, no roaring crowds, being born in a hole in a rock wall, a feeding trough for crib, the smell of animals all around, the cold, sparse shadows like devilish imps awaiting opportunity, pushed out to the side and dancing around in the flickering light of a couple of simple torches.
As you sit there, off to the side, observing, you see the tiny little form which lay in such a mean and lowly circumstance; a baby, soft, small, vulnerable, his little body wrapped tightly in a swaddling cloth, his little eyes closed as he inhales and exhales in rapid little breaths, his little face sweetly content against his mother warm and protective body. He stirs from the noise just outside, a fine, high-pitched sound escaping from him in a cooing little squeak.
With a gradual slowness, you see his eyes open slightly, blink, flutter, and then close again. With your breath held, you wait, your shoulders tight, anticipating his rousing, hoping to get a glimpse of him as he awakens to the world, his world, a world he knew long before it ever was, a world he will save, suffer unimaginable horror for, a world that he will soon discover with childhood innocence and at the same time…a world that he created.
Those little eyes, eyes that are seeing for the first time–and yet eyes that saw eternity– open, focus, look all around. They drift from placed to place as his mother props him up high on her breast so that you and those around you can see his infant face, bright and pink in its newness to this strange atmosphere so different from what he has known throughout the past nine months of his life. Then, as they move, you see his eyes fall from one thing to another, looking here, there, and taking in all that surrounds him. Then, with a jolt of realization, you see him look…no, surely not…could it be? Is it possible? Is he, this miracle, this phenomenon, this divine little gift from the Almighty and Holy One, is he looking at…at you? Yes! Yes, oh God in heaven, he is, he’s looking at, seeing, fixing his little gaze upon you!
Tears well heavily in your eyes, and you shiver. Not form the cold, not from the shadows, not form this moment in history, a history that will mark thousands of years of anticipation spoken of by the prophets in the book of the Jews. No, not because of that. But rather, because you know that He is come, that He is here, that He is seeing you, and you know now that you are looking into the eyes of the Wonderful Councilor, the Son that is given, the One, the true, living manifestation of Holiness–yes, you realize…that you are looking into the eyes of God himself.

Keck