Of Freedom and Fragile Wings

One time I heard a tapping at the window and curious to know what may be causing it, I went to take a look…. and there, throwing itself recklessly against the glass was a butterfly trying to get outside. I tried to imagine the perplexity and frustration (if butterflies experience such things) in failing to reach its destination when all its limited faculties must have been saying ‘this is the way’! Yet it could not get out; but neither could it help trying over and over again, spurred by a deeper desire and by the hope that accompanied it, until hurt and exhaustion put a stop to its efforts…and the tapping at the window ceased.

To throw oneself against the glass of disillusionment was an all too familiar experience. To perceive inside that I am meant for somewhere and something more and yet to have tried one thing after another that failed to deliver what it promised. If only I had… if only I was…. If only I could…. and each time endeavour to climb a new mountain only to summit and find nothing there that lasts… and again suffer the cold impact of my hope against the glass.

‘But this should work!’ I would say. ‘I should be free now.’ ‘I should be happy now’. And like a child chasing a soap bubble I’d experience the dismay on seeing it burst in my hands each time I caught it. And like a child, I wouldn’t understand. And like the butterfly I couldn’t understand.

I wonder if the butterfly might finally say to itself ‘maybe that vision is not real?’… ‘Maybe it’s not for me?’…. Better cosy up to the idea of mediocrity than experience the bitter taste of a shattered hope. And like the butterfly I may resolve to stop flapping my bruised and battered wings, shut my eyes on the dream and settle down to the darkness of the room.

And into that darkness… a Saviour is born.

This is the big deal about Christmas. This is the reason for the Glorias and Halleluias. At a particular point in history, in a particular place, God became man. From the vantage point of heaven He saw our failures and our disappointments. He saw our futile attempts to save ourselves that so often left us bruised and broken. He came to remind us who we are, to show us the only way to get home, and to make it possible.

He comes into our darkness, if we invite Him, and no darkness is too ugly for Him to be born into. He’s too concerned with us to be put off by the dirt. He loves us too deeply to count the cost. He comes into our sin, our mess and our brokenness to heal us, remind us how precious we are and lead us to the place where we belong. He comes today. When at last we stop trying to fix it all ourselves (and maybe that might take us hitting the bottom of the barrel) and cry out, He comes. Now, as He did then.

Back to the story of the butterfly; I could see the open door at the other end of the room but when I would reach out to guide the creature to freedom, it would only become more agitated.

Yes, there was only one way. God becoming man. In the darkness of a blind humanity, the light of the world is born as a vulnerable child, from the majesty of the King of heaven to the hardship of the life of man…a poor man…a working man; as the scripture says like us in everything but sin. That journey is infinitely greater and the cost significantly higher than if I had to grow stick legs, paper wings and relinquish all my human faculties and relationships to become a butterfly.

Yet all this may pass us by, and Christmas be nothing more than a date in the calendar; one with fond memories of childhood and an occasional warm and fuzzy feeling but nothing that involves us more personally or be significant to our lives. Certainly nothing that could be remotely worthy of a Gloria or an Alleluia! Why? Because unless the Saviour is born into OUR personal darkness then of course all this is a monumental event in the history of the salvation of the world, but that world doesn’t include US.

Salvation is conditional on being saved which is conditional on asking for salvation which is conditional on recognising that one requires it. So, Christmas is really the great feast of all the little people (and I don’t mean children) who know that they have a darkness too thick and a hole too big for the world or themselves to fill. Who know they are meant for more than this world promises, are more valuable than their experiences have sometimes led them to believe and can cry out to the God who came all the way from heaven to take them home……. on the other side of the window.

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