Vulnerability modelled in the manger at Christmas

The Newborn King meets us where we are and invites us into deeper relationship with Him.

“She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn.” Luke 2:7

Vulnerability is perhaps not the first emotion or feeling one would associate with Christmas. Hope, joy, peace, good will, love and grace would certainly rank among the top few suggestions that might come to mind if you asked someone on the street about an emotion that encapsulates Christmas.

Vulnerability was the word that encapsulated my Christmas last year. It was not the present I was expecting and it was the gift that kept on giving all year. This cancer journey has required me to be humble and vulnerable on a whole new level. For the five days leading up to Christmas I was attached to various IV lines, PCA lines, oxygen lines, ports, catheters and drains. I needed help to do almost anything, to breathe, to manage the pain, to use the bathroom, bathe, eat, reach for anything outside the range of my one arm. When I got home, I needed help to prepare and cut my food, to shower and dress, to wash  and do my hair, for pain relief, not to mention all of my responsibilities as wife and mother that don’t stop when you are unwell, such as attending to the day to day needs of my kids, to manage the house, drive to all my follow up appointments…basically almost everything. I had to deepen and refine my patience and humility. I had to quickly get ok with asking and receiving help and it required me to be vulnerable and allow others in. One year on and I still have to ask for help in what would be considered basic jobs.

Vulnerability requires us to be exposed, to be stripped back and open to others. This can be confronting, is humbling and leaves us open to be rejected. Instinctively we often protect ourselves from showing others our true selves, at least initially. However by opening our hearts to others and especially to God, a new transformative experience can occur.  Vulnerability says “this is who I am and I need help.” It’s meeting people where they are at and then journeying with them to where they could be with love, support and assistance.

The Holy Family knew vulnerability well. Mary and Joseph, as the two chosen to raise the Son of God, found themselves without a safe place to give birth having been turned away from all the inn’s in Bethlehem. Even in the first century, proper preparations would have been made for a birth with midwives and a safe space for a start.  A stable, surrounded by noisy and smelly animals, was the place the Messiah was born into, being placed into a feeding trough for his bed. This would have been far from what Mary would be expecting and what Joseph would have wanted for his wife, especially given that it was the Son of God whom she was delivering. Jesus was born among the poorest of the poor, among the smells and muck of animals. Then from the most humbling of beginnings, if this wasn’t enough, the Holy Family quickly found themselves refugees, in danger and on the run from a King who wanted Jesus dead. To say that Mary and Joseph’s transition to parenthood was rough is an understatement. They were vulnerable, open and exposed and needed God’s divine providence to keep them safe.

Vulnerable is how our Saviour King came to us. The Messiah could have chosen any way to come among us, but instead God chose to send his only Son to earth as the most helpless and vulnerable of all creation, a baby. Jesus, just as any baby, was totally dependant upon his mother and father for survival. Totally reliant and trusting of his parents for nourishment, protection, shelter and warmth.

This Newborn King knows tough times, he knows danger, he knows poverty, simplicity and humility. He chose this way precisely so that he could share our humanity, the highs and lows of our lives. Jesus comes this way deliberately so that we can see ourselves in Him and he welcomes us into that. No place is too dark or too smelly or too scary that this King cannot enter.

Jesus models vulnerability to us. He is reaching out to us, to help us, if only we have the courage, the faith and the trust to share ourselves with him. The good, the bad and the ugly.

You, as the gatekeeper of your own heart, can meet the baby Jesus in His vulnerability and openness at the manger, with your own vulnerability and openness. As the little baby stretches His arms up towards you to be embraced, those same arms will outstretch on the cross to save you. All for love of you.

As hard as it has been to allow others to see me exposed, broken and in pain, my vulnerability has allowed for deeper and stronger relationships. Stronger relationships with my beloved husband, my children, my family and friends. As I have shared myself, others have felt comfortable and safe to share their life with me. Out of love. Being vulnerable has allowed others who were wanting and asking to help, to love and serve me by accepting their help and assistance.

Jesus, the Newborn King, wants nothing more than to be in a deeper relationship with you. It is why He came. This Christmas, consider opening your heart and allowing the Newborn King in. Reach down to Him in the manger as He reaches up to you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Wishing you all a blessed, safe and holy Christmas.

Yours in Christ

Erin x

P.s. I cried throughout the whole of Christmas Eve Mass this year. I was blessed to celebrated it with my husband, children, parents, brother, sister and my nieces, nephews, my wonderful parish priest and parish family. It was a truly blessed Mass with not a second taken for granted. Presence over presents any day. All glory to God.