Becoming Small on the 7th Day of Christmas

While a few garlands and stripped Christmas trees lay sideways on the curb in my neighborhood, my wreaths with red bows are still up and my Christmas tree stands decorated and lit. The  manger scenes  sit atop the chests with candles surrounding them. As has been my practice for the last few years, I will celebrate the twelve days of Christmas despite the hurry that the rest of the world seems to be in to take it all down, pack it all up or throw it out. 

Keeping all my decorations up started as my way of savoring Christmas and resting ( a Sabbath, if you will) after the hurry and bustle of shopping, cooking, attending events and hosting parties. It seemed like too much preparation for just one day.  I just couldn’t strip it all down and jump into the new year  and the next thing so quickly!  

Being raised in a non-liturgical church, I initially had no idea this Twelve Days of Christmas was an actual thing people did. In my usual fashion I sort of stumbled into the back door of realizing this was a spiritual practice, but once I did  I made it my own, embracing the room it gave me to rest -or procrastinate - depending on your perspective. 

So on this quiet 7thth day of Christmas,  after the family and friends have left and the house is empty, I am taking time to notice the decorations.  I have a least eight manger scenes scattered throughout my home, the newest of which is at least a decade old. I notice something I’ve never paid attention to:  Jesus is the smallest thing in the scene. Only the lambs come close to his size and vulnerability and among my manger characters,  they still outweigh him a bit.  As I reach for matches to light the candles around the stable, I find myself staring at the baby and thinking, “Jesus became small for me.”  

What does that mean? 

He let himself be born.

He showed up in the world as a baby in a feed trough - helpless and needy.

He let himself be held.

He let himself be fed.

He let himself be trained. 

The One present at creation, the Logos himself, who spoke all creation into being, let himself come as the most vulnerable creature in it - a human infant.  He let himself cry and  be hungry and thirsty - like all babies.

He let his mother, Mary, minister to his needs.  

He let himself become.

He grew.

He learned.

Then He taught and He led. He came, Emmanuel, God-With-Us, to have an ending that would look to the world like failure. He came to land on a Roman cross and die a criminal’s death alone. Then He came back, from the other side of death, and cooked fish on the beach for Peter, the follower who swore allegiance to him then pretended he didn’t know Jesus three times before the cock crowed.  Before He ascended He promised his followers this: “I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.” 

I’ve noticed this fall how much fear gets in my way.

I want to embrace the future, to follow Jesus no matter what, and yet I fear change, vulnerability, what seems like failure, and feels like loss.  The baby in the manger seems to be saying that I don’t have to fear becoming small, starting something new, being weak and vulnerable, or looking like a failure.  He has already been there. He has already passed through all that for me. 

I can let myself need help. Like Him, I can let myself  be small.  I can give myself and others time to become. 

The Presence in the manger started very small. Week by week and year by year He became all that He’d intended in love from the very beginning of time. 

Looking back a few pages in my journal I see that midway through Advent I prayed this:  “Wait with me, Holy Spirit. Help me see Jesus in greater measure this season.  Usher me to the stable, the manger.  Show me my peace, my healer, my savior. 

He did. It’s all right there on the 7th day of Christmas - that tiny baby in a manger became small for me.