The Poetry of the Nativity
When I went to the shops yesterday I saw that the Santas and the reindeer and the Christmas trees
and all the hideous paraphernalia of the commercial Christmas had already disappeared. For the
commercial world Christmas Day is the end of the season, isn’t it; for us however, today is Day 4
of the 12 days of Christmas. Our Bible readings at this time are starting to focus of the significance
of the Nativity, and today we hear the young Jesus acclaimed by Simeon and Anna as the long
prophesied and hoped for Messiah. But let’s not be too hasty to leave the Nativity scene as we too
start to think about what it all means and what it has to do with us.
You’ll remember from your school days that a standard way in which students wind up teachers is
to ask ‘Why do we have to do this?’ It’s asked, you remember, not in a tone which indicates a
respectful and genuine desire for enlightenment but rather in querulous tone of assumed
indignation. I won’t go into the range of effective answers to that question now though we could
talk about it afterwards if you like. Perhaps you also remember a refined version of this question
which is addressed to English teachers: ‘Why do we have to do poetry?’ And I will give you the
answer to that question. The answer is ‘because you need poetry for when prose won’t do’. Poetry
is heightened language, full, rich, emotive, meaning-laden language, symbolic language, language
which can be a scream of anguish, a shout of joy, a gasp of awe and reverence, a mea culpa or a selfabasement in thankfulness. And students always accept that in times of great emotion such as the
death of a friend or being dumped by a boy or girl friend they turn to verse in which to express
their emotions, A purist might think that the verses written on such occasions are doggerel but for
the writers they are the poetry that the occasion and their feeling merits.
Well, right here in front of us today we have some significant poetry, visual poetry: two
representations of the birth of Jesus, the one in the European tradition and the other in a stunning
Aboriginal version. We know that they are poetry and not prose. They don’t purport to give actual
information about the facts of the birth of the Christ child. We have no information from the Bible
or any other source that the child was born in a stable (or indeed in a creek bed), that there were
any animals around, that there were three Magi, that angels sang at the manger or that a star shone
over the manger. Both Matthew and Luke assert that the place in which Jesus was born was
Bethlehem, but that too might perhaps have been poetic licence rather than cold fact. No, these
scenes don’t tell us facts about the event but rather through symbols they tell us about its
significance, and they express their composers’ feelings about the significance of the event.
So let’s look briefly at these poetic symbols and see what they suggest about the meaning of the
birth of this child and of the nature and activity of God.
 The song of the angels suggests that this event is something of cosmic joy and significance,
far beyond a particular time and place.
 The presence of the shepherds suggests that this event foreshadowed the revolutionary
proclamation of Jesus that God is available to simple, poor and marginalized people, to
dirty ‘outside’ people.
 The presence or the approach of the Magi suggests that God is available to all genuine
scholars and seekers after truth.
 The star suggests that in Christ we will find a polestar to fix our position and guide us
through life’s journey.
 the city of David, Bethlehem, suggests that Jesus fulfils the Kingship of David as Messiah
 and the stable in the eastern travelling tradition was a place where anyone could come for
shelter.
All of this is expressed in many traditional hymns, isn’t it? One that I’m am fond of can well be
said as a prayer as we kneel before the crib:
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1. O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see you lie!
Above your deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by:
yet, in your dark streets shining
the everlasting light,
the hopes and fears of all the years
are met in you tonight.
2. For Christ is born of Mary;
and, gathered all above,
while mortals sleep the angels keep
their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
proclaim the holy birth,
and praises sing to God the King
and peace to all on earth.
3. How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming;
but in this word of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still
the dear Christ enters in.
4. O holy child of Bethlehem.
descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in,
be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
their great glad tidings tell:
O come to us, abide with us
our Lord Immanuel.
The Bethlehem which carries so much symbolic meaning for Christians is the Bethlehem of the
heart. Yet of course Bethlehem the town exists today. While it has known much violence and strife
throughout its history, including its very recent history today it is at peace, yet as I heard its mayor
say on TV it is ‘an empty shell’ because visitors come only by bus from Jerusalem, visit the church
briefly and are hurried back to the big city. The city has lost 14% of its area as a 9.3 metre wall has
been built on three sides of the city, which apart from anything else cuts off the city’s view of the
beautiful hills of Judea; and the fourth side consists of a checkpoint.
But the contrast between the deep and dreamless sleep of the Bethlehem of the hymn and the
anxiety and poverty of the Bethlehem of today can be a creative and prophetic one of us. The
poetic and prophetic Christmas message of hope is the assurance that in the birth of Jesus the light
shined in the darkness and the darkness was not able to overcome it; it is shining in the darkness of
our world and the world has not overcome it; and it will shine in the darkness of the future and that
darkness too will not overcome it.
The contrast between the Bethlehem of the hymn and the Bethlehem of today tells us that we have
work to do. We know that in an imperfect world we are to be the bearers of that light. We might
also reflect that to be the body of Christ child who grew to be the redeemer of the world means
that we also have to take on our share of the burden of suffering that such redemption entails. But
that’s a reflection for another time. For today, as we come again before the Christ child in this
Christmas season let us too pray
O holy child of Bethlehem.
descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in,
be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
their great glad tidings tell:
O come to us, abide with us
our Lord Immanuel.
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