"There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the ass understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests at Jerusalem. And it is the same today."
That was the somewhat extreme view of the late Thomas Merton, monk and poet. But there is a caution in his words in that they suggest we must not think of Christmas purely as a religious event best understood in churches and cathedrals. This can happen with a disconnected spirituality which has little understanding of where ordinary people struggle day by day.
What we call the spirit of Christmas is sometimes better experienced out in the secular world where, even for a few hours or days, people rediscover the warmth and richness of their own humanity.
It is also a mistake to treat Christmas merely as a secular event without any spiritual meaning. The theological aspect of Christmas may not appeal to everyone, but we cannot afford to ignore it. Indeed, it is not an aspect of Christmas at all: it is the heart and soul of it. It makes little sense to return to Bethlehem year by year just to have a party. The least we can do is try to understand something of the great mystery centred on that small town which so profoundly affects people's lives to this day.
The founder of the Iona Community, Rev George Mac Leodsaw the need to link that place of prayer with its rich spirituality to the realities of life in the towns and cities of Scotland and beyond. He illustrated the point with the story of a young boy who threw a stone at a stained-glass window in the local church. The subject of the window was the nativity, with the words in capital letters: "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST". The stone knocked out the letter "E" from the word "HIGHEST", leaving it to read: "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGH ST". Dr Mac Leod made the point that, even with the removal of the letter, the text still made sense, pointing to a God who makes himself known in all sorts of unlikely places. This is an important part of the Christmas message.
The Christmas story recorded in the gospels is set in the everyday world. Not a temple or church is in sight. Bethlehem is crowded with people who have travelled to register for tax purposes. Business is booming and accommodation is fully booked. People are too busy to attend to the needs of a young woman about to have a baby. She and her partner have to make do as best they can in what one writer has described as "a stable at the back of a pub" because there was no room for them elsewhere.
This was not a deliberate rejection; it just happened that way. That's how it is for the weak and the vulnerable. They are overlooked or ignored because other interests, often political and economic, get in the way. The message of Christmas is that it is alongside and among the excluded and the forgotten that God unseen is present and active.
That was the case in 19th-century Dublin when a poor expectant mother trying to make her way to the Rotunda Hospital went into labour and was found dead with her new-born baby near Christ Church Cathedral at Christmas time. The public was appalled and some good people were moved to act; and so the Coombe Hospital came into being in 1826 on a site previously vacated by the Meath Hospital near the bottom of Meath Street.
The birth of Jesus in a crowded Bethlehem is a reminder that, no matter how we organise our secular affairs, God cannot be kept out. But equally it is a reminder to the religious among us to avoid any notion of confining God within our institutions, because he cannot be kept in either.
Christmas and that mischievous boy with the stone remind us that there is a very small gap, if any, between the sacred and the secular.
GL