I’m always struck by how different Christmas Day is from Christmas Eve. It’s like the difference between an introvert and an extrovert. 

Last night was exciting, noisy, and crowded. This morning is calm, quiet, and there aren’t many of us here. Christmas Eve pageantry has given way to Christmas Day simplicity. The candlelight of last night has given way to the Son-light of this morning. The singing and proclamation of last night have given way to this morning’s treasuring and pondering. Last night we came with anticipation. This morning fulfillment has come to us.

This morning no one is childless. There are no empty mangers. The child has been laid in the manger of your life and “joined heaven to earth and earth to heaven.” (Book of Occasional Services – 2022, 11). It is, as the angel says, “Good news of great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:8-20)

I ended last night’s sermon by saying, “Now go tend to the child laid in your manger.” I wonder what that means for you today. It’s a question I’m asking myself. It’s a question I suspect Mary was also pondering. 

Christmas doesn’t end with the birth of Jesus any more than having a child ends when you get home from the hospital. That’s when our work of tending to the child laid in our manger begins. 

Babies have a way of changing everything without really doing anything. They’re just there and everything is different. Some of us have experienced that in our own lives but I suspect we’ve all seen it happen in the lives of others. Both parent and newborn are learning to live and grow up. Babies offer us more than we can imagine and ask of us more than we often feel capable of. This child is no different. He offers us his all and asks of us our all. 

So what does it mean and look like for you to tend to this child? 

How will you welcome him into your life? How will you hold and carry him? In what ways will you nurture and feed his life? What are you willing to do for and give him? And how can you best love him?

What does this child mean for your life today? How has he changed you? What difference is he making? What is his first word to you? How do you feel when he says your name?

In what ways does he look like you and in what ways do you look like him? What do you see when you look in the face of this child? What do you want him to see when he looks at you? 

What is he offering you and what are you doing with that offering? What is he teaching you? What questions and challenges does he set before you? In what ways is he calling you more deeply into yourself? 

What do you want or need from this child? What does he want or need from you? What is he asking of you?

Can you let him grow up and change? Can you let him change you and grow you up? Who are you and he becoming, individually and together? What does it look like and mean to share life together?

If you were to tell someone about the child laid in the manger of your life, what would you say? What is so amazing about this child in your life that you just can’t keep quiet?

That’s a lot of questions and I hope you won’t answer them. Please don’t answer those questions. Instead, hold and carry them. Follow them. Listen to them. Feed and nurture them. Wrestle with them. Play with them. Pray with them. Treasure and ponder them. 

Just be with them and tend to the child. 

Merry Christmas!

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Image Credit: “Theotokos and Christ Child (detail)” by bobosh_t is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.