“Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,”

Bethlehem, in the West Bank, remains a difficult place to get to. I recall being searched by armed Israeli police and having my passport scrutinized before being allowed to proceed to the Church of the Nativity. The photo above shows not a manger but a chaotic presence of a border wall which surrounds Bethlehem. This photograph does not grace our Christmas cards nor our Christmas Nativity! “The Walled Off Hotel” has been created by the artist Banksy to highlight a very real crisis. More on the artwork can be found using the link https://walledoffhotel.com/ As I mentioned in my recent post the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem will not be holding services this Christmas due to the war.

John Donne (1572-1631) writes his Holy Sonnets, La Crona, as a series of 7 sonnets, which build one upon the other as Donne uses the last line of each as the first line of the next in the series. Today, I use the third in the series – Nativity. Please take a moment, amidst all the sorrow and horror of war, to ponder the words “Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb” What hope and what challenge do these words convey to you? In this moment of such awfulness and despair the challenge is to hope with a radical hope which demands that we do not remain mere observers of what is happening elsewhere.

Nativity by John Donne
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

A Prayer for Christmas Day:
Today, O God,
the soles of your feet
have touched the earth.
Today,
the backstreet, the forgotten place
have been lit up with significance.
Today,
the households of earth
welcome the King of heaven.
For you have come among us.
So may our songs rise to surround your throne
as our knees bend to salute your cradle. Amen.
(from Book of Common Worship of The Church of Scotland)