When I was younger, I lived in Mexico for a while. The first Christmas away from home was difficult. I spent the week at friend’s home, north of Acapulco. Somehow heat and palm trees didn’t seem quite the same as being home for the holidays with snow and my family. Initially I felt sad. It didn’t feel right. I associated Christmas with the external surroundings of family, special foods, gifts, carols, adorned Christmas trees and snow. Few of those things were visible in the little town north of Acapulco.
Part of the Christmas celebration in Mexico includes a nine-day festival call Las Posadas. Posada means “the inn.” It is a visual reenactment of the story of Christmas.
“About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.” While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.”
Each night during the posadas, pilgrims representing Mary and Joseph pass from house to house requesting room. Other members of the company light the way, holding long, slender candles. They sing traditional songs as they arrive at each home. They are turned away until they arrive at the house that will hold the posada for the evening. The residents act as innkeepers, inviting all to come in to the celebration. This procession takes place every night through Christmas Eve. On this night the carols that request lodging change into a celebration as Mary and Joseph are given a place to stay. Pinatas explode with candy as las Posadas celebrate family, friends, and food, all centered in the story of Christmas.
It seems that there is a valuable concept that can be drawn throughout this holiday celebration. Christmas honors the birth of the Christ child and the restoration of humankind to one another and to the divine. He spent time with people who were lonely, wounded, and outcasts. In the birth narrative, we see pilgrims in need of a place that would welcome them. The story shows us both the amount of welcome that at times was not available – and then continues to show us what happened when welcome WAS available. On the part of the innkeepers, we see some able to welcome them, and some who were not able to do so.
Life brings us moments where we can be in need of welcome and embrace. Other times we are the ones who can offer the welcome embrace or hospitality to another. Here is a bit of a local story that shows us the power of embrace.
“By look at him and Mary Johns, his arm around her, you’d think they were mother and son. But actually, he’s the man who murdered her son. It happened in 1993. Israel shot Byrd multiple times, his body left outside North Memorial Hospital. Israel said, “When I took his life I just saw him. I didn’t see his mother.” Johnson lived with the pain and hatred for over a decade as Israel sat in prison in Stillwater…after 17.5 years in prison for Israel and just months after his release, they’re more than friends. Johnson said, “He’s like my son.”
While it seems incomprehensible, they’re now working together to promote healing between families of victims and perpetrators… This new bond, fostered by her forgiveness, has taught Israel to let go of some of his anger as well as pursue a life much more positive. Johnson and Israel hope to bring other families of violence together for forgiveness.” KARE-11
This Christmas season, on which side do you land? Are you one who can offer welcome, grace to another this week? Is there a family member or friend to whom you can offer hospitality this weekend? A co-worker to who you can offer unconditional care?
Or, this Christmas, are you at a place where you are on the receiving end of this sort of grace? Consider how you might lean into the care and attention of another person so that you may experience an element of healing.
I remember the welcome embrace of my first Posada. Laughter, hot cocoa, dancing, candy flying through the air from the ruptured pinata and conversation. A friend gave me a bracelet to commemorate the event. I felt as if, even though I was not at home, not among family, I WAS welcomed and brought in, as if I belonged.
We learn from the Posadas that by welcoming others, we are welcoming God into our midst. When we offer unconditional acceptance to another, and to our own self, we are offering grace. We experience the grace of acceptance that the Christ child brought to that stable. The appearance of this grace, as evidenced through the child brought shepherds from the hills and kings from the east. It draws us. It compels us. It embraces us. It welcomes us to a place of healing and shelter - posada.
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