Chaos

My sister and her family are home.

My cousins are home, too. And  so for the first time in a really long time, we will be spending Christmas together, just like we used to when we were younger. But since our family has grown exponentially over the years, Christmas this year will be merrier. And more chaotic. And more joyful. And more chaotic. And more interesting. And did I mention more chaotic?

But it will be a wonderful kind of chaos. The kind that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside because you know that if you had the choice to be anywhere in the world, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. It’s the kind of chaos the holiday movies love to capitalize on and TV ads want to promote. It’s the kind of chaos that huge malls try to simulate with their midnight sales and Christmas trimmings. It’s the kind of chaos that those away from home miss most of all, even more than they miss the gifts and the Noche Buena and the manito-manita. It’s the kind of chaos that only families can bring.

Christmas is a lot about the chaos and a lot about families. Because Christmas is about a God who just didn’t want to start the human family but who wanted to be a part of it. Who wanted to “get his hands dirty” by descending into the world not so he could rule us and demand our submission but so he could work alongside us, suffer alongside us and love us into holiness. To love someone, as one priest once said, is to enter into his chaos. And that is exactly what Christ did. He entered straight into our chaos, got Himself smack in the middle of the muck that is humanity and clothed Himself in poverty and frailty.

And Christmas is the ultimate reminder of the chaos that was at Bethlehem. Of the commotion that was brought about by the census. Of the confusion that was at the inns. Of the mess of the animals in the cave. And then, of the beautiful mystery of the Savior of the world being born. What a wonderful kind of chaos it must have been as shepherds crowded into the little cave to marvel at the newborn King, as the wise men brought gifts to Wisdom Himself, as a father looked at the Son that was his and yet not his, as the virgin looked in wonder at what should have been an impossible birth.

Christ came into our chaos but he was not defined by it. Instead he transformed it with his love. And because of him, the human family was never the same. And this Christmas, he calls us to look into the chaos of our own families, to see that beneath the drama and the issues and the hurts, there is that beautiful gift of Christmas, of love, of loyalty, of sacrifice, of Christ himself coming down to be with us, of God made man, of Love bringing peace to the chaos of the world.