For the past several years, I have gone from writing a Christmas letter to writing a Christmas poem. Here is this year’s Christmas poem.
JOSEPH’S PLAINT AT CHRISTMAS
I was awakened abruply, the words
of the Angel, “Get up, take the child
and his mother, and flee to Egypt”,
rang in my ear. Alarm suddenly
breaks through my grogginess
as I awaken Mary and the donkey
to flee for our lives into
darkness that lay outside the stable.
Astride a donkey, Mary, makes
a cradle in her arms, safely
sheltering our Child as she rides.
Leaving behind our homeland,
now corrupted and shredded by
the violence of power, greed, and deceit,
I lead my family carefully, stealthily
through dark dangers
to the safety of a foreign nation,
to make a home amongst those
who once enslaved
and killed my people.
As strangers in a strange land,
we are welcomed as freed people
allowed to live and grow
in safety and security.
Awakened once more
the angel’s voice calls to me
in the deepness of sleep.
We arise to return
to the land that bore us,
to fulfill our mission
and, most importantly
the mission of my Child.
How can my Child sleep
in heavenly peace when
his children, refugees like us,
are ripped from the arms
of their mothers and fathers,
caged like animals,
by those whose minds
are as dark and dank
as the worst of dungeons?
God’s angel weeps
at the violence of a cruel humanity
toward those beloved by God,
the angel’s voice silenced
by the fear, prejudice and greed
in their hearts.
The children’s anguished cries
rend the heavens, and
reach my Child’s ear,
in them, my Child suffers.
Their fear become his fear,
their hunger, his hunger,
their thirst, his thirst,
their imprisonment, his imprisonment,
their suffering, his suffering,
their poverty, his poverty,
their deaths, his death.
Who will welcome my Child
this Christmas? Who will
protect my Child from the
the dangers of the journey?
Who will cradle my frightened
Child in their arms?
Who will dry the tears of my Child
languishing in a government cage?
who will welcome, feed, clothe,
and shelter my Child this Christmas?
Who? Will you?
(c) 2018, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
It is easy to be dazzled by the lights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the Season so much so that Christmas is reduced to mere commercial and religious sentimentality. The Prologue of John’s Gospel reminds us that all of Creation was birthed through Jesus, the Logos of God. This profound insight was grasped in the spirituality of the early Church, Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi, and Juliann of Norwich, who spoke of Jesus as both Incarnate brother and Mother of all Creation.
To truly “keep” Christmas, we must recognize our Incarnate Lord, who is both Brother and Mother to all refugees languishing in refugee camps and U.S. prisons. In Matthew 25:31-46 we hear Jesus say, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” As we enjoy our Christmas celebration with our families, let us pray for the families of all refugees and for the reunification of refugee families in the United States this Christmas.
