Learning to cherish

As they say in ministry, a word landed on my heart recently: cherish. 

Cherish is to hold something dear, to protect it. To cherish something or someone is to love, revere, care for, look after, tend, protect, preserve, keep safe, nurture, and so on.

This idea of cherishing someone on a spiritual level sunk deeper into my heart when my wife and I started our family and I realized that when they hurt, I hurt. When they feel joy or healing, I feel joyful and healed myself. The relationships in my life have become something which I hold dear to my heart, in my soul.

When I think of the most wonderful times in my life, moments of deep joy, it has been when these relationships connect my spirit, my soul, my heart, and mind to deep love. The type of love that will both crease a smile of joy across my cheek and water a tear of awe in my eye at the same time. 

I cherish these moments and relationships. They have become the most important things in my life. I want to protect these loved ones. I hold them dear in my heart. I want to keep them safe and nurture their thriving in life.

This idea of cherishing reminds me of the season of Advent as that time each year when we mark, with anticipation and longing, the arrival of the Child, the Christ incarnated in Jesus. The Divine come to be among us. Born human to point us all to the Divine among and within. To help us understand the paradox of the finite and the infinite. To help us see and live into the space of the material and the spiritual.

In the church we spend this season anticipating with longing the coming of the Christ child. We end up cherishing the child Jesus during Christmas time. We hold Him dear in our heart through our gathering for worship.

Jesus is our Christian reminder that God cherishes us so much that They needed to come be among us, to teach all of humankind the importance of relationship. They cherished us so much that They became one of us to remind us that we are all connected to each other and the eternal Divine. Jesus is the reminder that God came by here then and comes by here now and will continue coming by here, showing up for all to witness and experience.  

Jesus grows up to challenge any system that tramples one human being in order that some may have at the expense of others who go without. Jesus grows up to say NO to the empire of greed and power. We, humanity in history, stop cherishing the child Jesus when we disregard Jesus the adult and His earthly ministry.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would simply stop killing one another.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would stop oppressing others as less than for our own greed.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would cherish everything that Jesus cherished. Which, when we read the text and look for the deeper meaning contained in the Gospel, is all of creation. Each piece, part, and person.

If we cherished the child in Jesus there would be no other to oppress or devalue as less than fully human.

We cherish the child in Jesus when we witness HIs presence no matter where He shows up.

If we can learn to fully grasp the concept that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine, we may be able to learn to cherish Jesus not just during Advent and Christmas. We may be able to cherish the child Jesus who is alive as the Christ in us and all of creation, as was alive in the universe prior to the Child born in Jesus.

This all means that we cherish each child of creation, even as we are all children of the Creation. It means that the child in any space or in any time is worth our spiritual cherishing.

When we cherish the child in Jesus, when we listen for His voice, we hear God saying back, We/Us/They/God cherish these moments, these relationships. They are the most important things, and We want to protect these loved ones. We hold them dear in Our heart. We want to keep them safe and nurture their thriving in life.

When we cherish each piece, part, and person of creation we are cherishing Jesus as God so cherishes each of us.

Holding the Christ Child in Jesus within our hearts reminds us that God is holding all of creation within the Heart of all that was, all that is, and that will ever be.