Thoughts on Christmas: Imagining the Incarnation...

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Last Sunday in Church we sang "'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime."  This song is the English version of the 'Huron Carol," which, interestingly enough, is Canada's oldest Christmas song.  I was listening to a lovely version by Bruce Cockburn and it got me to thinking about the ways in which we conceive of the events surrounding the Incarnation... the story of Christmas.

In the Huron Carol, it's author, Saint Jean de Brébeuf gave the Christmas story to the Huron people in imagery the could relate to.  One famous English translation reads:

'Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunters heard the hymn:
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp'd His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high...
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."

This version of the Christmas story places Jesus among the snowy winter forests of Canada with hunters coming to see the new-born king.  There in a "lodge of broken bark" the child is found wrapped in a "ragged robe of rabbit skin."

The historical Jesus was born of humble means in a little town in Palestine to Jewish parents but that hasn't stopped men and women throughout the centuries from bringing their collective imaginations to bear on the historical reality of the Incarnation... and I think this is a wonderful thing to do!

The gift of Christmas, i.e. the Incarnational redemption of all creation, is an inheritance shared by all humanity.  Every people group and every individual have claim to the joy and hope that was born that day so long ago in a little Jewish town.

It seems meet and right that the Incarnation, which was the union of the human and divine, the infinite and the finite, should also be the union of the universal with the particular.  Indeed, there will only ever be one historical reality through which the Son of God was born into this world, but the ways in which we imagine that birth will ever be myriad.

As for me, I'm a little bit partial to Gerard van Honthorst's "Adoration of the Shepherds".

Gloria Deo
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