“…Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” (King James Bible, Luke 2:12)

The town of Bethlehem is built on a little hill on which the white, flat-roofed houses cluster and rise in irregular terraces.  Some of the oldest are constructed in a style that has not changed since the Birth of our Blessed Lord.  They are really one-roomed houses built over caves.  The caves, which are hollowed out of the hillside at road level, are still used as stables for the animals, while the living quarters of the family, farther back up the slope, are reached by flights of stone steps.

And it was in one of these caves that Jesus Christ, the Holy of holies, was born of his spotless Mother.  We have romanticised that stable and often, like the images on many Christmas cards, picture it as comfortable and clean.  But in truth it is much more likely to have been draughty and dingy – even squalid.  And such it would have remained had not the Saviour of the world been born there.

But this wondrous Birth has made it into one of the most hallowed places on earth, the other being the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  Now there is a splendid church built over it, with the east end above the spot where, according to very ancient tradition, the Saviour was born.  And beneath, reached by a flight of stone steps, the cave itself is lit by silver lamps and in the floor is set a silver star with a Latin inscription round it, “Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary”.

The reason why God the Son made man did not despise that stable was that he had come to save us from the power and consequences of our sins.  His love for us was so great that he did not shrink from coming into contact with the squalor of that stable which he filled instead with his own light and life.

And our souls, like that stable, are no fit place for the all-holy Lord, but he does not despise even them, because he has come to save and transform us.  For the salvation which Christ brings and which was his sole reason for becoming man, that salvation consists in clearing out of the soul all that is sinful and unholy, and replacing it with his own most holy presence.

From our point of view salvation means penitence and faith, the putting away of sin and the entire devotion of the soul to God.  From his point of view it is the transforming, not now of the stable into a sanctuary, but of the unworthy soul into a temple of God, hallowed by his own presence.

Christmas is not merely the Birthday of the Founder of the Christian religion.  Indeed to keep it as that alone is to miss not only the true joy of this holy season, but also its true meaning.  Christmas is very much more than the commemoration of an historical event; it is even more than a Festival kept by the whole Church in honour of the Birth of its Lord and God.  It is also a time of personal joy when each member of the Church should rejoice in the coming to earth of his or her Saviour and for all that has meant, and still means, for the salvation of their own souls.

For the Festival of Christmas in inseparable from the joy of sinners, both in their Saviour and in his salvation, which by their penitence and faith they have claimed and have received.

So the angel told St Joseph before our Saviour’s Birth, “…thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (King James Bible, Matthew 1:21, our emphasis), and again, after his Birth, the angel told the shepherds, “…I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour…” (King James Bible, Luke 2:10,11, our emphasis).

So, though at Christmas time happiness may come from family reunions or the memories of carefree childhood days, yet the true personal joy is reserved for those who have experienced his redeeming work in their own souls – who have known the cleansing power of their Lord’s forgiveness, who have seen that he does not despise their unworthy state, but has visited them, and has been born within their souls, filling them with his light and life and changing them completely, before their very eyes, from what they were before.

And all of this they owe, not to any merit in themselves, but only to the Holy Babe and to his love; and in him they rejoice, and their joy, as he himself promised, no one will take from them (see John 16:22).