It’s the Trying That Matters: A Life Lived in Love

Forty years ago, in London, England, I attended morning services at a rather grand church in the middle of the city. 8 am gatherings tend to attract a diverse group: tourists, business people on the way to work, devout locals and, truth be told, eccentrics and street people. One regular was an older woman whom we knew as Elsie, but nobody was sure if that was actually her name. She’d arrive seconds before the service began and rush out as soon as it was over. She always carried a plastic bag bulging with goodness knows what, wore the same heavy crimson coat whatever the weather, and danced a little jig when the priest consecrated the host. Elsie was as much a fixture as the crucifix behind the altar.

Then, one Christmas morning, she wasn’t there. Christmas Day services aren’t always well-attended because people come on Christmas Eve. But not Elsie. Every day, rain, snow, or sun. At the end of the service, the priest asked us to remain for a moment, and he then told us that Elsie had died in the early hours. The funeral was announced, and we were all invited.

I went along not because I knew the woman beyond the occasional smile but because I assumed hardly anybody would be there. It was packed. I recognized some of the morning regulars but not the hundred or so other mourners, from every background imaginable. It was only after the funeral that I discovered Elsie’s story. How this child of a wealthy family had lived in a tiny apartment and spent all of her inheritance helping people in need, how she spent her days walking around the heart of one of the most prosperous cities in the world, feeding people on the street, chatting to them and – most importantly – listening to them. How she’d made herself smaller so they could be larger, given her entire life to others. She’d suffered with chronic pain most of her adult years, but told her priest she was happy and that her only wish was to die on Christmas Day, the time we celebrate the birth of her saviour. Her wish had been granted.

She’d led a Christian life, and one that I could never come close to replicating. But it’s the trying, not the failing, that matters. And knowing what Christ, Christianity, and Christmas genuinely mean. It’s Jesus, of course. But who was he, and what did his life mean?

He was Jewish, the child of a poor family living under occupation, and born in an era when life was tenuous and tough. Also born the Son of God. If true, and I’m convinced that it is, it means that the creator of the universe took human form to show solidarity with humanity and took that form in the most vulnerable and dependent way possible. Not a warlord, not a monarch, not a billionaire, but a baby in a family struggling to survive. How then can any Christian not try to emulate this divine embrace of the poor, rejected, marginalized, and oppressed? The answer is that they can’t, at least not if they’re serious about it all.

We can argue about theology, history, and translation all day long, but the central point, the quintessential command, of the life that would be led by the baby born 2000 years ago is that we have to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbours as ourselves. Love even our ungrateful, rude, difficult, violent, nasty neighbours as ourselves.

The baby whose birth we celebrate became a man who proposed a new and sparkling paradigm, a new relationship between people, a new way of being, living, and doing. What he also told us was that individual transformation was possible and vital and that we’re all capable of it. The phrase “born again” is overused and often wrongly used, but it mustn’t be dismissed. Consider Ebenezer Scrooge in one of the greatest books ever written about Christmas. He becomes “as good a friend and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.” But also, “Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh.” Let the mockers and the cynics do their thing. It’s always been thus, and if anybody understood the human capacity to doubt and hate, it was Jesus, whose death on a cross saw the temporary triumph of darkness and despair.

The world is as divided and bloody as it’s ever been, and in some ways, the potential for pain and terror is greater than ever. That makes Christmas and all for which it stands not less but more relevant. The Christian faith, the philosophy of Christmas, isn’t naïve or childish, and a mature understanding of the Gospels should lead us to know precisely how difficult life can be. As a priest, I see this almost every day. But if we surrender the fight for justice, equality, peace, hope and love, we fail God and fail that baby whose birth changed everything. In my better moments, that reality washes over me and makes me complete. If I forget or if I feel sorry for myself, I think of Elsie. She knew what it was all about. Oh, how she knew.