Reflections on Luke 2.1-14
Christmas Eve
24 December 2023
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
One of the last photographs I took of our Shetland Sheepdog, Seren, was in April of this year as he and I prepared to take our usual walk in McKittrick Park across from our home in North Delta. He’s looking at me with an expression he used at the beginning of every walk, an expression which says, ‘Let’s get a move on. I’ve got places to smell, squirrels to control and a world to organize.’
Seren belonged to that group of creatures for whom the journey is more important than the destination. This meant that he and I had totally different ideas about what the purpose of a walk around the park was. It took years of training to stop Seren from visiting every tree in the park, but it was impossible to prevent him from stopping at certain regular places on the trail. It did no good for me to say silly human things like, ‘It’s the same tree as yesterday!’ Seren would just look at me with a look that said, ‘It’s sad that you live in such a limited sensory world.’
Every once and a while I would remember on our walks that I actually do enjoy travelling and I admit to having a certain wanderlust. I’ve been fortunate to have had a career that has taken me to places I would never have thought I’d visit – the Solomon Islands, Myanmar, Aboriginal communities in Canada and the United States. So, if Seren wanted to check out a particular spot, who was I to deny him the pleasure?
I’m not so sure that Mary and Joseph would share Seren’s philosophy of travelling. They faced dangers and hardships that few if any of us have. Their journey to Bethlehem was not one of their own choosing but an exercise of imperial power and coercion. Perhaps they were part of a larger company that included members of their extended family, but the story of their arrival in Bethlehem suggests that is was sauve qui peut – everyone for themselves – to find food and shelter in a small town now swollen with unwanted people from throughout the Jewish territories.
Each year at this time we retrace their journey. We mark each stage by singing familiar carols that cast their journey in a somewhat romantic light coloured by our memories of other Christmas Eves in our lives. But this year we tell the familiar story in the shadow of the atrocities committed by Hamas and the staggering consequences on the civilian population of Gaza by the Israeli military response to those atrocities. Being on the road to Bethlehem tonight is not about a pleasurable road trip but about the flight of thousands throughout the world to find safety from violence.
Here we are, disciples of the Holy Child, on the road with the Holy Family. We, like Mary and Joseph, and millions of others over the centuries are seeking that ‘better country’ God has promised us. We are ‘strangers and foreigners on the earth’ for we are seeking a homeland, ‘a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one’.
The heavenly homeland we are seeking is not some dwelling place in the clouds. Our heavenly homeland is an earth where every human being is free to become the person God means them to become. Our heavenly homeland is an earth where no one has to flee for safety and where we are free to enjoy every step on the journey of life and to savour every stopping place.
Over the past five and a half years I have been drawn closer to Pacific Immigrant Resources Society, one of our community partners. Each week refugee and immigrant women and their children gather in the Parish Hall to study English, to learn about Canadian culture and to heal from the journeys that brought them here. I’ve made a point to be a visible but discreet Christian presence given that many come from places where Christians are a minority who keep a low profile. Every time I see these women and their children, I see a Holy Family seeking shelter and I have an opportunity to be the innkeeper who, on the behalf of our Parish, can say, ‘There is plenty of room in this inn for you. Come in and find help, hope and home.’
All of us are on the road to our Bethlehem, our better homeland. Not all of us have the privilege of enjoying every stage and stop on our way. Our annual commemoration of the Holy Family’s journey to their Bethlehem renews our commitment to helping, in whatever way we can and by whatever resources we have at our disposal, others reach their destinations in safety and well-being. We’re all on the road – yet again – may we all reach the destination God is leading us towards soon.
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