The story of Christmas, that beautiful story from 2000 years ago. It is so familiar to all of us. It is the story of God becoming man, stepping down from His throne in Heaven, stepping into the reality of humanity, choosing to make His dwelling among us. It is the story of God working for our good, commencing the next phase in His plan to bring us redemption and salvation, a plan that will take us from the wood of the manger to the wood of the Cross. Ultimately, it is the story of love, the greatest love that we could ever imagine or conceive.

When we look at the nativity scene, we see representatives from every part of the human family.

The shepherds…the ordinary people, those who work hard for the life they have, those who often struggle to make ends meet, those who are overlooked by society. They are the first to receive the message of the Angels on that night that the Savior had been born and they respond to that message with hope and enthusiasm, going searching for the promised Christ-child. Their presence in the Nativity story reinforces the message that God’s love and salvation is available to all, regardless of social status or wealth.

In the coming weeks, we’ll also see the Wise Men approaching the Nativity Scene. Tradition tells us that they will come from the East, representing the rich, the powerful, the rulers of the world. They come, following the guidance of a star, bearing gifts for the Lord and humbly bowing in adoration before Him. Coming from those distant lands, they symbolize the universal recognition of the kingship and divinity of Jesus. Their gifts to the Christ-child – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – each having their own symbolic meanings. Gold signifying royalty; frankincense, often used in worship, signifying His divinity; and myrrh, used in burial rites, foreshadowing Jesus’ eventual suffering and death.

The shepherds and the Wise Men come from completely different backgrounds. They have totally opposite roles within society, their status is in absolute contrast of one another. And yet, they come together to honor and pay tribute to the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, Emmanuel, God-with-us. They remind us that the story of Christmas is universal, reaching out to all humanity with a promise of hope, peace, and salvation. It is a story for all of us – for you and for me.

So often, we think that we are unworthy to receive the love of God. Or worse, because of experiences in our lives, we think that the Lord has abandoned us, neglected us, and left us to fend for ourselves.

Sometimes we think of our past mistakes, our past failures and hold onto to those things, believing that they cut us off from relationship with God.

We might be walking with an elderly parent or loved one who is declining in health. We see the pain and suffering they are enduring and might be wondering why God would allow them to suffer.

We might be enduring our own battles with physical, emotional, or mental health, feeling rejected and abandoned by those around us, which so often leads us to an experience of intense loneliness. We may be asking the Lord if He, too, has rejected us.

We might have recently been laid off from work or struggling with making ends meet in the job we currently have, especially in our present economic situation. The bills are piling up and we may be wondering when our relief will be coming. Is the Lord going to do anything to help us?

Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe things are going really well for us, everything is going relatively smoothly. We are able to take care of our families in abundance and we are in a good place with our faith.

It doesn’t matter what the last year has looked like for us. It doesn’t matter how much we have prayed or frequented the Sacraments or attended Mass, or anything of the sort. It doesn’t matter what kinds of hardships we have undergone in the last many months. In this celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, what matters is that Jesus is coming into our midst; He is actively stepping into our realities; He is ready to meet us wherever we might find ourselves. He enters our story and walks with us.

He encounters us as we are because He wants to rewrite the script with us. He wants to enter into our hearts in a tangible way, to enter into our lives in a new way tonight/today. Is there room in our hearts to allow God to write His story within us?

Whenever we open our hearts to receive Him, whenever we allow Him to enter into the circumstances that we face, He may not change the experience of it; He may not take away the struggles that we are feeling. But He walks with us through them. Just as He did with the Shepherds on that first Christmas, He didn’t change their lives in terms of what they did, their status, their work…but He did change their hearts. He filled them with joy, with hope; He gave them something to look forward to.

Look at the place He was born – there is nothing special about it. In fact, it was obviously the most basic and humble of beginnings…but that’s the exact message of the Christmas story. He doesn’t want to just meet us in the beautiful area of our lives; He wants to be in the messy, smelly barn areas. He wants us to walk with us through good times, the bad times, the uncertain times, the moments of doubt, the moments of confusion. He wants to be with us in our suffering, our pain, our joy, our hope. He simply wants to be with us.

Why does He do that? Because of what He has to offer us. What He offers is the absolute greatest gift we could ever imagine…His love, His mercy, His redemption. He wants us to spend eternity with Him; that starts by opening our hearts to Him, inviting Him into those areas of our lives where we have been keeping Him at bay.

Jesus wants to change our stories. He wants the story of Christmas to come alive in our hearts, in our lives. Will we allow Him to do that today?

Photo: Manger scene by Al Elmes. Used under Unsplash license.