David Whyte, a local renowned poet, wrote a poem, entitled Old Interior Angel, which tells the story of a strong confident young man hiking in the Himalayas who comes to a broken footbridge, dangling hundreds of feet above a rocky stream. The cables were snapped and the wooden planks tumbled together uselessly. Clearly, he could go no further. He sits down and tries to talk himself into approaching the trembling, ruined bridge, but cannot bring himself to cross. Admitting defeat, he decides to turn back.
Just as he is about to leave, an old mountain woman, bent and barefoot, bearing an enormous basket balanced on her back, comes along, collecting dung for fuel along the path. Seeing the young man, she smiles and offers the traditional greeting, “Namaste, I greet the God in you.” (na-ma-stay)
The young man bows in response, but before he looks up again, she is gone, walking ahead straight across the crumbling bridge that seemed to him so impassable. Without thinking, swept in the wake of her courage and trust, he says, “Namaste,” and follows her across.
I like that poem because of the beauty and wisdom it contains. But I also like it for another reason. It helps me understand something very important about today’s feast.
When I read the gospels carefully and prayerfully, I find myself wondering at times, “Why did Jesus wait so long to begin his ministry? Why didn’t he begin preaching in his twenties instead of waiting until he was thirty? Didn’t he know the whole world was crying out to hear what he had to say? What was Jesus waiting for?
The answer to that question is simple, yet important. Jesus was waiting for John the Baptist to first call the people to repentance. To better understand even that scenario, I ran across an insight on the Jews that was new to me.
Until John the Baptist appeared proclaiming his message of repentance, no Jew ever thought of being baptized. Jews practiced baptism, but only for converts, that is, people who became Jews. William Barclay explains, “No Jew ever conceived that he, a member of God’s chosen people, could ever need baptism. Baptism was for sinners, and no Jew ever conceived of himself as a sinner shut out from God.
“Now for the first time in their national history, the Jews realized their own sin and their own need for God. Never before had there been such a unique national movement of penitence and of search for God. This was the very moment for which Jesus had been waiting. Men and women were conscious of their sin and conscious of their need for God.”
The Holy Spirit had at last awakened the Jews to an awareness of God’s intimate presence in their midst and Jesus now knew this was the time for him to venture forth and proclaim a gospel of repentance. At his baptism, Jesus bridged the gap between God and humanity, enabling us to know God intimately.
How then does this event apply to us in this time and place? Perhaps the lesson for us is this: Jesus cannot begin to act in our lives and transform us until, like the people of ancient Israel, we are ready to let him do so. Nor can Jesus do anything to make us ready. Only we can do that.
And the way we make ourselves ready to let Jesus work in us is to recognize that we cannot travel through life alone. We must first admit to our need for Jesus in our daily lives. When we reach that point, Jesus can then act in our lives to transform us into what God made us to be.
In the gospel, we heard that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as he emerged from his baptism. When the heavens opened, God came into their midst and into ours. That same Spirit descends and rests upon us at our baptism, enabling us to know God intimately. It is what the people of the Himalayas call “Namaste,” which means the God in us. The spirit, Namaste, speaks to us in the deepest and most hidden parts of our hearts of the love and compassion of God. It is the very life of God animating us and leading us; it is the well spring of grace and wisdom, of courage and perseverance, enabling us to become people of justice, peace, compassion and goodness that out of love God created us to be.
I long thought this feast was an odd way to close out the Christmas season; after all, Jesus is now an adult, but now I see why. If the message we heard at Christmas, summed up by the angels as peace on earth and good will toward all, is to be manifested in the coming year, it can only happen through us. And that can’t be done unless we freely choose to do what we can, individually and collectively as a faith community, to heed God’s call to justice, knowing that God is in us to empower us for this holy undertaking.
The season of Christmas closes with this Mass but we are by no means finished with Christmas. There is much to be done to complete the great poem of Jesus’ birth. The good news spoken by angels continues to unfold as we venture in the year ahead to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger either in our midst or seeking to migrate here, liberate the imprisoned, and bring peace to others. And we can do so for Namaste, God is in us.