The Center of Our World

It makes sense to me, Jesus

That people come home, go home for Christmas
It seems right that your birthday

Would be marked by a frenzied return to the familiar
Everywhere today are unsuspecting pilgrims

Making the holiday trek
—on rails, on tires, on wings—
All en route, back to the center of their lives, back home
Back to a place of hoped-for gravity

In an otherwise weightless world
Some find it, and there is joy

Some do not, so the search goes on

But whether these holiday hoards know it or not
—a matter of some theological debate—
All this traveling home seems a fitting party

For your fleshly advent among us
For from the start of your story

You were always at the center of things
You’ve continually made your bed among us

Right in our ranks

I remember my mother’s chalky-white nativity set
Its annual appearance on the dark marble hutch
The whole scene, a Green Stamp purchase

from some closeout season gone by

I remember
Your tiny little hands and feet

Formed in Plaster of Paris
Your manger

Cast from a sweat-shop mold like hundreds of others
Your many scene-mates

Each with made in hong kong affixed to their bottoms

And while it was my great delight

Often to rearrange shepherds and sages
—Joseph outside with bleating sheep

Oxen where only angels should trod—
I never dared moved you, Jesus

It never felt right

You always seemed to fit in the center of things

The sun of their orbit

Even as an infant

Already calling God’s chosen band to gather round
You, the smallest, most helpless, most needy of them all
Born a sacred irony: their Life and Love and Lord

So come again, dear Jesus

Take your rightful post at the center of our lives
Rearrange the oft-handled, mishandled pieces

Of our homes and hearts
Until each finds its proper place on the periphery

Encircling your new life

Come again, O Jesus

Be that blessed homecoming

At the end of all our wayward treks
Show us that weight of glory

That ballasts our wispy, worried world
Teach us to live in the shelter of your sanctuary

Until at last we are home with you for good

For this is who you are, baby Jesus—so small and so grand

You:

The hub of our salvation
The core of our communion

The weight of our world

So take your place among us
Right here, where you most belong
At the center of our lives