C.S. Lewis once wrote that the Feast of the Incarnation is the “grand miracle” of the Christian faith, the central chapter on which the whole Biblical plot turns. Christmas, says Lewis, is not a means to an end. It’s not merely a way of getting us to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Christmas has unique revelatory power. Christmas discloses the heart of God.

The sadness and fear we have experienced this year can do nothing to change this sacred truth. Creation may tremble and groan, human beings may manipulate and coerce, principalities and powers may do everything they can to extinguish hope, but still, the Divine light shines. As the great Lutheran martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, once wrote:

Just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can’t stand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong…God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever [any] may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.

As our authors take a brief hiatus to reflect on these truths, we pray that the “grand miracle” of Christ’s birth will illumine hearts, sustain wills, and bring deep and lasting peace to souls. In the words of Caryll Houselander: “Christ has laid His Humanity upon us. A seamless garment, woven by a woman, single and complete, colored like the lilies of the field, passing the glory of Solomon, but simple as the wild flowers. A wedding garment worn to the shape of His body, warm with His Life.”

This pandemic shall pass. Our celebrations, traditions and keeping of the Christmas feast will no doubt be different this year, but the truth of the Incarnation remains. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Merry Christmas,

-The Conciliar Post Team