The successful journey of any Christian begins with a first step: welcoming Jesus into your heart. That phrase makes some people cringe. I don’t think they cringe because the notion itself is bad; in fact, many people who would rather not involve themselves with a church read the teachings of Christ and wholeheartedly endorse them, much as they would anything else that resonates with a part of them. This is the foundation of belief.
No, I think the problem starts when the one delivering the words demonstrates hypocritical behavior. In my opinion, this is the primary obstacle to be overcome by Christians today if they wish to continue church as an institution. Yet God can and does use flawed people to help facilitate an introduction to the One we celebrate today.
As you may have noticed by now, the tradition of Las Posadas was designed for such a purpose: to help people welcome Jesus in. It is a tradition that was created by Father Diego de Soria, a Spanish Augustinian, to introduce Christianity to the conquered indigenous peoples of Mexico. In those days, the people we now call Mexicans were many different peoples, with the Aztec Empire being the largest nation. All of that changed in the years that followed as these peoples were taught Spanish and Roman Catholicism by Spanish missionaries.
These missionaries had the intention of making what came to be called New Spain into a Christian nation, but history records their abuses and brutality toward the indigenous population. Only by the grace of God was the panoply of indigenous traditions preserved; the missionaries permitted the people to maintain their cultural practices, even religious ones, so long as they didn’t appear to violate Catholic traditions. This is how we, in the modern world, came to inherit the unwitting work of oppressed peoples and their colonizers.
This might be why Christmas was so readily adopted by the indigenous people. An infant Savior from Heaven is born to a couple that are practically metaphors for so much of life as oppressed people. The whole narrative takes place under the thumb of the Roman conqueror: the census, the forced relocation of so many people, the taxation of those people by a foreign government. Even the local government would go on to force the Holy Family out of their land to flee persecution.
Yet despite all of this darkness, God is born into the world, to the oppressed, not the oppressor. God-with-US. Not God-with-THEM. God comes not by force of arms, but in humble form to the indigenous population. I call it one God’s sneakiest tricks; that God somehow over the centuries convinced so many Christian oppressors to spread a story like this to those they oppress. In America, white slavers forced their Bible and their God on their Black slaves but didn’t realize that they were teaching them that God was not with the oppressor, but the oppressed. God-with-US, not God-with-them.
When you welcome Jesus into your heart, you welcome not a God that has somehow favored those in power but has used them to remind the world that God serves the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. God lifts up the downtrodden and casts the wicked to the ground. God’s delight is not in the strength of the horse nor God’s pleasure in the speed of a runner, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear God, in those who hope in God’s love! That’s Psalm 147, folks. Where do you think Mary’s song comes from? Where did she find her joy? In the Lord of Hosts that her ancestors spoke of before we assigned names like “Psalm” and “147”, and it was just what they knew of their Lord.
In the earliest iterations of Las Posadas, the indigenous were taught the story of the Holy Family searching for room at the inn. The tradition involved a simple question, “Who will give lodging to these weary travelers?” Do you see the metaphor here? And the people in their homes would at first reply, “There’s no room here.” But at last, at the end of this tradition, the weary travelers find room, and there’s a big party. I still remember those parties when we did it in church. The tamales, the champurrado, which is a thick hot drink made with chocolate, corn, and spices. The music, breaking pinatas, and depending on where you celebrated, even fireworks, like in downtown LA in the 80s at Olvera Street when my mom served as a local pastor at La Plaza United Methodist.
Days gone by, but never gone from my heart. And today I wanted to share something of them with you, to help you welcome Christ into your own heart. Whatever has happened this year to you and your family, whatever sadness or despair, know that God is with you! God has not abandoned you or forsaken you! It is at your moment of greatest sorrow that God draws nearest to you! May God bless you and keep you, and make God’s face to shine upon you as the Lord does for me every day. For to YOU a Savior was born, and He’s going to change EVERYTHING. Indeed, He already has! Glory to God in the highest, and peace upon those whom God favors. If you agree, let the people say, amen.