Looking Up

 

Dear Friends,

My cousins, Ed and Ro, are avid stargazers. They recently sent me the image shown here of Saturn and Jupiter which will be as close together on December 21 as they have been since 1623. Go out on whatever cloudless sky we have before then and look up to see what you can see. Look up! 

“Look up!” is a good phrase to describe our best posture for Christmas. It’s what the shepherds did as they guarded their flocks by night on the hillsides beyond Bethlehem. Maybe they saw a star-filled sky and wondered about what it meant. They certainly saw an angel and then a brilliant panoply of angels in the sky, and they wondered. Wondering is a Christmas activity. The shepherds wondered what the words of the angel meant and where that message would lead if they dared to follow it. 

Somehow, they decided who would be left behind to guard the sheep and who would go to see. Seeing is a Christmas activity. The shepherds saw with new eyes on Christmas. Up on the hillside, they saw angels who told them the good news and the shepherds believed. Down in a sleeping town, they saw the star lead them to a stable. They wondered if they dare go inside.

They went in, saw, and they believed what they saw was more than what they saw…three people, somehow comfortable in these meagre surroundings: a man, a woman and a newborn. Animals were there, too, heating the stable with their body warmth and their breath. The shepherds were in awe. Awe is a Christmas word. These shepherds, poor and poorly regarded in their society, came face to face with the Word Made Flesh, tiny, unafraid, glad to finally be among his people. In their belief, the shepherds went out to tell anyone who would listen. Belief and telling the good news are Christmas activities.

• So too, this Christmas, we are called to look up, wonder, see, be in awe, believe and tell the good news.

Later, the astrologers in the East also looked up and saw the star. From different places, they set out. Led by the star, they journeyed alone and then maybe together. Journey is an Epiphany activity. One must leave the comfort of home to meet others on the way to meet the Word Made Flesh. 

One must come to trust others on the way. The Wise Men trusted too much. They trusted Herod, who was a villain, untrue to the kingly role he was given. But God’s care for the Word Made Flesh was greater than the power of Herod. Both the Holy Family and the Wise Men, warned in a dream, fled safely, but infant boys in Bethlehem did not. Great sacrifice is also part of the Epiphany experience.

• On Epiphany in this Christmas season, we are called to journey, alone and best of all together, to find the Child, to trust we will find Him, to accept the truth of dreams and be willing to sacrifice.

All season long, let’s all do our best to experience the simple-sounding, deeply revelatory calls we have from God, to be as the shepherds were and the Wise Men as well. Ask the Christ Child to show us how. It all begins with looking up. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala