TOP
A Disruptive Child
A Disruptive Child

A Disruptive Child

Christmas Day. Fr Robert Gay reminds us of the hope offered by the Christ-Child.

We’re told that in much of the world, birth rates are dropping at a rapid speed: down from a global average of just over 4.5 children per family in 1950 to less than two children for each family in our current times. It’s predicted that this number will have dropped to 1.5 by the end of the century. The reasons for this are many and are complicated, but there is a reasonable body of research that suggests that the rate is declining more rapidly in our present times because of a rise in anxiety about the kind of world in which children will inherit and how they will manage to live in it. Looking at the present situation and the predictions for the future in terms of possible conflict, structural injustice and factors such as climate change has made many people anxious about bringing a child into a world where the future might seem very bleak.

If the world really is as bad as has been suggested, it has been argued the decision to bring a child in the world is an act of cruelty. A version of this theory is put forward by the Philosopher David Benatar, who has argued that bringing someone into existence generates both good and bad experiences, pain and pleasure; by contrast, not doing so generates neither pain nor pleasure. He goes on to argue that the absence of pain is good, the absence of pleasure is not bad. Therefore, the right thing to do is weighed in favour of non-procreation.

We might not share the view of the world outlined above – at least not in its most catastrophic form. And we can be realistic about the challenges and struggles without needing to go as far as Benatar. In fact, when we think carefully about those struggles – we might come to see that the coming of a child into the world is in fact the perfect response to the the gloom, because it is, in a certain way, an act of hope of those parents. And that hope is very often based on a strong belief in human ingenuity and adaptability to solve present and future problems; it is a belief that things could be different in our world.

But there is something altogether more powerful in the form of hope that marks us as Christians – it is the hope that comes to us from God, which helps us to live the unfolding of time and history as something happening under the guidance of a wise and loving God, who is shaping the return of us, his beloved creation, back to himself. Hope shows us a way through times of particular difficulty, because we find a way through those times by grace.

From the very beginning of the Gospel for midnight Mass, we are given an account of a child born into a troubled world – an event taking place in an occupied territory rife with injustice and brutality; a woman towards the end of her pregnancy, forced to travel at the worst time possible moment for her; and a child born in the humblest, poorest conditions. Although it’s an event which happened a long time ago, our nativity story takes place against a background of considerable trouble and uncertainty; no less difficult to navigate that the difficulties of our own time. And into that troubled world comes a child, a sign of hope or – perhaps more accurately – the sign and fulfilment of our hope.

We know that when a child comes into the world, there is a change in that world. For those new parents, that change is experienced as something of a seismic event, a dependent baby that will rely totally on them for everything, will take all their time, attention and resources. And for those gathered around, family and friends, their lives too will change as they share in different ways in the joys and struggles that come with this new person. Given that this is the case, we can see that it’s not an accident, but by beautiful design, that the event of God coming into the world happens with the birth of a child, proclaimed by the song of the heavenly host. That God comes to us as a baby makes it clear that lives will be changed and disrupted; indeed the whole course of history is being changed. Because this child is the Son of God, we know that this coming as a child has the greatest of significance.

It is the child Jesus who will manifest God and God’s ways from his birth. And the time before the beginning of his public ministry is part of that revelation. That God comes to us as a baby who demands our entire attention and devotion helps us to understand from the beginning what place God should have in our lives. The coming of the Christ child calls us out of our self-centredness, and moves the centre of our lives out towards him, out towards God. As we follow the story of the child in the manger, we are drawn to continue to centre our lives on him as he grows and develops, as he takes up his saving ministry of teaching and healing – all the way through to him being nailed to the cross.

When God comes into a broken and sometimes frightening world to unleash his love on that world to bring it back to him, the result is challenge and disruption for each individual and society. And our desire as Christians should be to welcome that challenge and disruption, and to want its saving effects. For there is surely nothing worse than being left to our own devices, and for our trust in the power of God to change our lives and our world to be diminished or even extinguished.

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-7 | Titus 2:11-14 | Luke 2:1-14

Image: detail from The Nativity by Antoniazzo Romano (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

Fr Robert Gay is Bursar and Assistant Novice Master in the Dominican Priory in Milan. 
robert.gay@english.op.org

Post a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.