As we celebrate Christmas, consider for a moment the people you love, the people in your life with whom you smile, laugh, and dream: your spouse, family, partner, children, and friends.
 
Then consider the people who love you, those who affirm, encourage, and remind you of the goodness in your soul.
 
These relationships birth love.  They are what Christmas is about. 
 
Christ came into the world in human flesh as a sign and symbol of God’s unconditional love for creation, and when his physical body left the earth he poured his spirit into our flesh so that we could continue the task of birthing compassion.   We are the clay vessels through whom God pours his peace and joy into and out of.
 
The birth of Christ then was not just an historical event, it was a life-changing event.  It rocked the universe, was a cosmic game-changer—that like the big bang blanketed the world with a new spirit of human and divine love connecting heaven and earth as One through you and me.
 
The birth of Christ is the incarnation of love in the world.  Christ came and dwells among us so that he may become love in and through us.  In a sense, we are pregnant with God, pregnant with love.
 
This possibility is both exciting and challenging.  Exciting to think that God has invited each of us to continue the divine plan of love’s evolution.  Richard Rohr writes:
 
            “We are passing on the very love of God from age to age.  We are all sent to advance the history of divine love through space and time.”
 
This indwelling gift must first be acknowledged and then received by affirming our own dignity and self-respect.  To be love, we must first understand we are love, filled with Divine goodness and light. 
 
Coming to know the depth and breadth of God’s love for us is the light bulb that sparks our understanding of the holiness of our lives. And as we receive that gift of holiness from the Creator, we then begin to pour his love out through us into the universe with our human hands and feet.
 
We make love to the world each time we encourage, affirm, and create loving relationships.  We become the incarnation, the physical presence of love each time we help another, sit and hold another’s hand, and bring the gift of Christ’s peace into their life through ours.
 
The Christmas story is an inspiration that challenges us to bring more compassion and joy into the world.  How is my life evolving the spirit of love into a physical reality, we might ask ourselves? And when we ponder and discover the amazing yet simple ways we bring peace and compassion into the world, we realize we are birthing the unconditional love of the Christ-child.
 
 
brian j plachta
brianplachta.net