What do vaccines and a vulnerable infant have in common?

As those who call ourselves Christian, our new year has actually already begun. It did not begin with the first vaccine injections, and will not begin when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. Instead, the Christian liturgical year begins the first Sunday we light the advent wreath. 

This year the beginning of advent was more poignant than ever.

During Advent we wait. 
We wait for the coming of the light as the days grow darker and darker. And the days have grown darker and darker as we are faced with rising infections and covid fatigue and winter closures after a summer and fall of outdoor gatherings. 
We wait for the end of pain, poverty, and injustice. And this year as we waited death tolls rose, food pantry numbers increased, and racial & social injustice continued to plague our society.
We wait for the birth of the Christ Child on Christmas Eve, when busyness will cease, and the familiar carol, O Come All Ye Faithful, fills the church. But this year, there hasn’t been much busyness with holiday parties cancelled and family gatherings postponed. And we will not all be together on Christmas Eve singing in one voice the familiar words: joyful and triumphant! 

And so we have waited earnestly, impatiently, and sometimes with a well spring of hope, for the child to arrive and transform the darkness. 

The truth is, we have been waiting since March. We have been waiting for the world to return to normal. We have been waiting to hug those we love and for children to return to school. We have been waiting for familiar routines to envelope us with their predictability. And we have been waiting for a vaccine.

Yesterday as I scrolled through my social media feed I was flooded with pictures of friends receiving vaccines: medical professionals and leaders of all kinds. There was electric joy radiating from their faces, sleeves rolled up and ready. Gratitude permeated their written words. 

The ill timing of Mary’s labor, the swaddling clothes and manger, the chorus of heavenly hosts, the shepherd’s hasty arrival, the wise men’s late arrival -- this story is old to us. It does not hold the same wonder as the new covid vaccine. But perhaps this year, after a year of honing our waiting skills, we will come to understand that a crying infant, born to homeless peasants, is our yearly vaccine. Perhaps this Christmas Eve as we listen at our computer screens or hum O come all ye faithful under our masks, we will awake to the news we have been waiting for all year, and every year. This child born to us, this light, is like an injection of long awaited virus proteins. 

The antidote the Christ Child offers after all our waiting is this: Hope in the face of fear, Peace in the face of injustice, Joy in the face of heartbreak, and Love, always Love in the face of hate. 

Thank God for the vaccine and a vulnerable child who reminds us that there is light in the darkness, joyful and triumphant. Amen.

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