“Let Him enter, the King of Glory!” (Psalm 24:7)
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We know this and yet so often we enter into this holy season without truly considering the weight and glory of what it is we celebrate, the reason for our rejoicing. We were created to be in relationship with God, to know His love and to walk confidently and unashamed with Him. But since the Fall we had been cut off. We were in darkness and despite all of our human connections we were in a very real sense utterly and desperately alone.
We call God holy, and rightly so, for He is sacred, righteous, pure, but the Hebrew word that we derive the word holy from also means set apart. God was completely set apart, completely other, and we who were made for relationship with Him had no recourse to Him, no way of drawing near.
But then the unthinkable, wonderous, incomprehensible thing happened. God came near to us. He came Himself as Light into our darkness. He came so close that we could take Him in our arms and hold Him to our hearts, hear his heartbeat against our own. The God who had never ceased to gaze upon us with love now came in such a way that we could gaze upon Him with love.
This is the reason we rejoice, the momentous event we celebrate at each Christmas as we remember the birth of our Savior. This alone would be enough, more than sufficient reason to rejoice, but God is abundant, lavish in His great love. So, in addition to His incarnation at a certain time and place in history, He chose also to remain with us. He remains with us, sustaining us in the Eucharist where we commune with Him truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, and He remains with us through the power of the Holy Spirit, making His dwelling place in our souls. We are restored to the relationship we were made for from the beginning.
As we celebrate this Christmas and look forward with joyful anticipation for the Day of His return let us take time to make space for Jesus. Ponder the wonderous truth of what He has done, let His light rest upon you, and rejoicing let Him enter, for He is the King of Glory!
Prose for the sake of Poetry 