Mark 9: 36 – 37
Taking a child,
Jesus set him before them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them,
“Whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me; and whoever
receives me does not receive me, but him who sent me.”
*
“When
you welcome the child, you are really welcoming me.” Who is this magical child
and why does he try to force himself into our lives?
Deep
within each of us is a little child. This little child is the real me ─ put there by God to know him, love
him, serve him, and to be happy with him for all eternity. But who is this real
me? Is it the personal ‘me’ that we
see when we look in the mirror: the ‘me’ that was born on such and such a date,
travels through life with a history of joys and sorrows, relationships and
losses, successes and failures, and will eventually die on such and such a
date? Or is it that timeless me at
the center of our being, our immortal soul, the Christ-child within us?
Thanks
to psychology, we have learned
much about the ‘little child’
within us, and the need to set that child free — free from the wounds of any
early trauma that might prevent it from living and loving life to its fullest.
This is the personal ‘me’ within our human psyche. But we also have within us
another child, a child that longs to be set free from the prison of personal
self-centeredness; that longs to love with all of its being. This is the real me — this is the Christ-child within.
Through
the Gospel, Jesus calls us to be free. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon,
we are called to let go of that personal child ─ that ‘me’, and to welcome into
our midst and embrace the Christ-child within us.
But
to properly welcome that child, we must first clean out our closets.
Unfortunately, our closets are often filled with baggage — emotional baggage
collected over a lifetime: anger, hurt, resentment and self-alienation.
Buried
away, behind all that baggage is our Christ child, our ticket home to God. And
like the little child in the above Gospel, the child that Jesus embraced and
brought into the midst of his disciples, the Christ-child within the closet of
our soul can be easily missed — drowned out and obscured by the noise of the
world.
What
stands in our way? What makes it
so tough for us to find and welcome that Christ-child? Life can be difficult.
Things happen. Life happens. We sometimes get hurt — wounded very deeply. We
accumulate history, and with that history comes the baggage, emotional baggage.
Little by little that Christ-child within our soul gets pushed to the back of
the closet.
To
find and welcome that child, we must open the closet of our mind, and one by
one get rid of all that baggage we no longer need — the baggage that has buried
the child. Packed away within that baggage for some of us are painful,
unresolved feelings towards others: the memory of physical, emotional or sexual
abuse; the pain of abandonment as a child by a parent we may have lost through
divorce, death or a debilitating addiction or illness; the hurt of betrayal as
an adult by someone we loved and trusted very deeply; anger towards God for an
illness or handicap we are struggling through life with, or for taking someone
from us in death. The list goes on and on. And yet Jesus tells us to get rid of
the baggage and to welcome the child.
Some
of us have baggage filled with self-alienation, self-hatred: for not being
perfect; for not being someone, anyone, other than who we are; for something
awful we may have done along the way, for which God has long since forgiven us,
even though we can’t seem to forgive ourselves. And yet Jesus asks us to get
rid of the baggage and to welcome the child.
This baggage is hard to let go
of. It is usually the result of some very real hurt and damage we have
experienced in life. But if we hold on to the anger, the hurt, the resentment,
the self-alienation, it becomes like a blockage in the artery of God’s love. It stands in the way of our being able
to love God, to love each other and to love ourselves. It keeps us locked in a
prison of bitterness, anxiety and depression and makes it difficult for God’s love to flow through us and
into the world. It makes it real tough for us to welcome the Christ-child into
our midst.
But
Jesus never gives up. He keeps calling to us from way behind all the baggage of
our lives. His gentle, reassuring voice asks us to let that wounded child
within our mind be touched by the magic of God’s unconditional love. He
whispers to us in the flowers, in the song of a morning bird, in the smile of a
friend. He’s there with the promise of hope as we open our eyes on each new
day, each new beginning to the rest of our journey.
He
asks us to let go of the past, of the anger, of the hurt, of the fear; to
forgive; to be loved and to love unconditionally, without strings.
That
Christ-child within will never give up. He’s calling to us now. He’s calling us
to hug him and bring him into the center of our life. He’s calling us to be
healed. He’s calling us to be whole.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Readers
of this blog might enjoy these books by Deacon Lex. Both are available on
Amazon.com:
Just
to Follow My Friend: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life
Synchronicity
as the Work of the Holy Spirit: Jungian Insights for Spiritual Direction and
Pastoral Ministry
Great stuff. If we recognize the Christ-child within, I hope that it will invite the mature Christ to be expressed in us as well. To Wholeness.
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