This is a favorite hymn from the Nativity services – especially this setting.

The time of Nativity sets the tone for our understanding of God’s Love for us… and that tells us deeply of our relationship with Him… that He pursues us; He is jealous for us, He is a Mighty Warrior, Defender and Healer of our souls.

My encouragement to all is that during these twelve days of time of the Nativity : hold the mystery of the Incarnation in the palm of your heart : swaddle and meditate that God is born humbly… coming as a stranger, as a child. “calling back to heaven those who were estranged from Paradise” (Cantcle One : Forefeast of the Nativity of Christ). Through the hush of a holy birth… the flame of Paschal Mystery in Hades is already ablaze. Adam is not only recalled from darkness, but he is filled with joy, he rejoices and is renewed at the Saviors birth. We who fall down and get up again over and over throughout our lives, we are Adam.

Throughout the hymns in the days leading up to the Nativity we actually sang of Adam rejoicing. Talking about this left my Sunday School class last year awestruck.

I have always loved teaching Sunday School because Sunday School also always teaches me – it challenges me to have an honest answer. (If you are a Sunday School teacher, then you know what I mean.) Those moments when the flame of faith sparks in their souls and they can barely contain themselves.

One of my students, a 6th grade boy asked, “Why are we singing about Adam anyhow? Isn’t it Christmas?” So we talked about why that is… all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve, the fall, the Prophets, the world in waiting for the promised Messiah… to the birth of Christ.

That same boy in my class stopped everything that he was doing during that lesson, and just looked at me and said, “honestly, that just blows my mind, how much God loves us.” Those are amazing moments to pause, savor and to be very attentive…. the simplicity of faith of a child. He got it.

“Emmanuel” – God with us. He has become flesh of our flesh and comes to find His friend Adam and if He has come to find His friend Adam, then there is nothing he won’t do to find you and each and everyone one of us.

That should blow our minds, and settle within us an amazing peace, comfort and joy. This is not some abstract remote far removed event. God with us is God with YOU.

The cave of Bethlehem is no further than your own heart. The joy announced by the angels to the shepherds is the joy announced to you. The star that lights and guides the Magi, illumines our paths as well. And though the Nativity comes to us all collectively, it is also deeply deeply personal to each and every soul. Eukharistia.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that (insert your name here) who believes in Him should not persish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, that that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)