If the Incarnation had been in the year 2025, Mary would have given birth under a highway overpass in a homeless camp after being denied entry into the local church-ran shelter because there was no room for a family 'like hers'. Instead of the Christ Child being delivered by archangels, He is pulled from her by the dirty, freezing fingers of the queer teen kicked out by his parents, the junkie who isn't ready to quit, and the schizophrenic whose family became too tired of her symptoms to take care of her for any longer.
If the Incarnation had been in the year 2025, the angels would have appeared to the minimum-wage employees loitering outside their department stores and fast food restaurants, exhausted, feet aching, despairing at the knowledge that their paycheck won't cover both food and utilities.
"Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!" The angels rumble, louder than the 18 wheelers and construction. "This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in an old hoodie and lying amongst the beer bottles and cigarette butts."
And the workers glance at each other, consider the little change in their pockets and the CEOs who couldn't care less if they froze in their beds because the heat shut off, and begin their walk along the asphalt under the glow of the streetlights.
If the Incarnation had been in the year 2025, Mary and Joseph would have fled from their home in the night, fled from bullets and tear gas and the devils in uniform as state sanctioned genocide ripped their lives to shreds, the wailing little toddler Christ tucked under Mary's chin.
And if the Incarnation had been in the year 2025, the Holy Family would have hid, undocumented and alien, moving across borders and checkpoints, heads down, hearts full of fear and prayer. The Holy Family would sleep in refugee tents amidst camps full of families whose baby sons' bodies had to be left behind, riddled with bullets from guns made by Herod's allies, sold to him under the guise of protecting the peace, when really that just meant protecting his power.
But the Incarnation did not happen in the year 2025. The Christ Child had long since lived, died, and lived again by then. But if He had been born on that frigid night in the December of 2025, under a highway in a homeless camp to a brown mother and father, would you love Him just the same?
Merry Christmas. God bless us all.
