She wrapped him in swadding clothes...

Image: Holy Nativity Convent

Homily for Christmas 2009
(Scriptures for Midnight Mass)

Swaddling clothes…
“She wrapped him in swaddling clothes
and laid him in a manger…”

If clothes can be called swaddling,
there must be a verb, “to swaddle”
- and of course, there is.

To swaddle means to wrap or bind, to restrain
with strips of cloth.
It’s an ancient practice for caring for newborns,
still used by mothers today.
It’s said to reduce an infant's fussiness and crying
and contributes to deeper, restful sleep.

Imagine…
the very Word of God becomes flesh
and is immediately swaddled, wrapped, bound, restrained:
the divinity of God, wrapped in our humanity;
the power of God, bound by our need for rest and sleep;
the eternity of God, restrained by time and place…

Imagine…
the beauty of God laid in a feedbox in a stable for livestock;
the love of God left without shelter
for a government census for collecting taxes;
the coming of God among so many oblivious to his presence…

As one writer put it:

He made himself subject to our limitations:
to discomfort, poverty, hunger and thirst and pain.

He knew fear, temptation and failure.

He suffered loneliness, betrayal, unrequited love,
utter desolation of spirit, the sense of despair and death.

He suffered all these things,
and all the secret, incommunicable things
known to each individual, which can never be told…

Christ lived each of our lives.

He has faced all our fears, suffered all our griefs,
overcame all our temptations, labored in all of our labors,
loved in all of our loves, died all our deaths.

He took our humanity, just as it is,
with all its wretchedness and ugliness,
and gave it back to us just as his humanity is:
transfigured by the beauty of his living, filled full of his joy.*

God, wrapped in our humanity,
bound by our frailty and restrained by our pain.

Incarnation: God-swaddled!

The question Christmas poses is this:
will we allow ourselves to be swaddled, wrapped in God’s Spirit?
will we exchange the bondage of our pride
for a humble acceptance of his mercy?
will we allow ourselves to be restrained by his Word,
his law of love, and put the needs of others before our own?

Like the mother of a newborn,
God wants to swaddle us each of us, without exception.

God wants to wrap us in forgiving love;
to bind us as one in faith;
to restrain us with a Word that harnesses our selfishness
and sets free the divine beauty swaddled in ever human being.

In the little town of Bethlehem,
God was swaddled in our history, in our lives and in our hearts.

Bethlehem means “house of bread”
and we remember at this altar,
how the life of Christ is swaddled in the bread and cup of the Eucharist.

May we who gather tonight in this church, this house of the Lord’s bread,
may we be swaddled in God’s love
and blessed with a new year of peace.

*A Child in Winter with Caryll Houselander, edited by Thomas Hoffman, pages 43-45