We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity... But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me. –Meister Eckhart, 13th Century theologian
One of my favorite childhood memories is waking up on Christmas morning to the realization that the long wait and anticipation for the special day had at last arrived. Back in those childhood days, my slumber was sound and deep. It often took my older sister shaking me and excitedly announcing it was time to wake up, which pulled me out of my sleepy fog of unawareness to the joyous realization of the dawn of Christmas morn. I’m sure my initial reaction to being disturbed was irritation and annoyance…until it dawned on me why she was disturbing my slumber and then I welcomed the awakening to this glorious reality. While my sister played a part in bringing me to this realization, she did not create the reality of the moment. It was there waiting to be recognized.
This is our spiritual journey in a nutshell. We study scripture, we contemplate, we listen to wise sages, we meditate and pray, and we affirm words of truth, along this path that evolves over time in our quest to know the fullness of the Truth. Yet, the Truth, the reality of Divine Presence is not something that comes into our lives. It’s ever-present and has been here since time immemorial. The “eternal birth” that Eckhart references is our divine birth, not a moment in time, but our true essence, “created in the image and likeness of God.” If I remain “asleep” to my true divine essence, then I remain separated from the peace and happiness which is embedded in my original divine self. In this understanding, there is nothing more for God to do for me that has not already been accomplished. In order for this holy child to come into recognition there must be a receptivity to the eternal willingness of the Holy Spirit to have its way in us. As Wordsworth observed, “our human birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…from God, who is our home.” Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born from above.” And so in order for us to have the most profound Christmas experience, we too, must wake up to the eternal in us. This is the eternal birth or God’s Being made manifest in our awareness as, “I am.”
Such divine realization need not be a long journey. The star that guides us is within, neither distance nor time separates us from where we find ourselves. It is however obscured by our absorption with life “appearances”, rather than the simple knowing of our Being. Wise men and women, travel inward, not outward to find the Christ that is God’s Being. It is self-evident on this holy ground where you now stand. It does not take prostrations or fervent prayers to beseech such an awakening from a reluctant Godhead. “It is the Father’s good pleasure to have given you the kingdom,” Jesus assures us. The irony of the spiritual “journey” is that as soon as we end the search, we can find ourselves. It was the end of yearning that prompted the Prodigal to turn around and return to his true home, and there, oddly and gracefully he is fulfilled. It is in giving up a preferred reality apart from this moment that reestablishes an abiding sense of being whole, here and now.
The longing that we feel, the discontent of winter days and nights, is nothing more nor less than the remembrance of our true nature calling us back to know ourselves as we are known by God. Rumi said, “Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you, as a fish out of water hears the surf, ‘Come back’ ‘Come back.’ This turn toward what you deeply love, saves you.”
The peace and happiness that we seek can be a prompt to reverse our orientation to life. Instead of looking outward and asking life to meet our preferences, it is about returning to the ocean of divine awareness in which we “live, move and have our being.” Nor do we need many words and “vain repetitions,” for the language of God is silence. What we are going for is not worldly assurance but a silent knowing. Be still and know, God is and I am. In this thoughtless, spaciousness, there is a peace that passes human understanding. It is the Grace of God revealing itself as us. It is the wild wave collapsing back into the ocean of being from whence it came. It is dying to self to be reborn as the Eternal One. This is the Christmas message.
Merry Christmas,
Rev. Larry
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