These are the pictures of perfection that loom over us like commandants,
barking behind us to march farther and try harder to achieve a moving
target. We are enmeshed in the relentless drive to create the "Perfect Christmas".
The failings are inevitable. Juice spills on the holiday tablecloth
before we've even sat down. The pineapple upside down cake that I
brought to the caroling party which the six year old was carrying is
upside right on the sidewalk. Our daughter is sick and there are fifty
people scheduled to arrive in an hour.
These problems and a score of
variations on the theme have appeared in my path over the years when I
least expected it. I can't figure out why I am still naive enough to be
surprised. After all the advent I am celebrating was anything but perfect. Mary's betrothal to Joseph was clouded when he
planned to divorce her, until an angel beckoned him otherwise. Perhaps
her idea of the "Perfect Wedding" was forfeited in the wake of Divine
plans. She was compelled to travel to Bethlehem in her last weeks of
pregnancy, a difficult and uncomfortable journey. There was no one to
welcome them, indeed no room anywhere save a cold corner in the straw
among the animals.
Even after all these obstacles, the safety of Mary's infant was
not assured. Herod's treacherous murder of hundreds of baby boys
hovered like a shroud of fear and sorrow all around them as they
escaped to a foreign country. Could anyone dare to christen this, the
first, a "Perfect Christmas"?
On a barometer of external safety, palatial accommodations or local
popularity, the coming of Christ was a dismal disappointment. There
were no parades and probably no hot cocoa. Yet measured in
terms of the invisible, the ineffable, this Child's entrance into our
imperfect world birthed a bridge between the mire of earthly existence
and the threshold of celestial shores.
Photo by Geoffrey Orthwein
www.caringformarriage.org
