Behold!

Behold!

This seemingly simple – and rarely used- word is seen throughout the story of Christmas in Sacred Scripture. One of the most popular uses in the secular account of the Birth of Jesus is of course from the Peanuts Christmas movie when Linus takes center stage and recounts the visit of the angels to the Shepherds. It certainly appears beyond just the Christmas story, hundreds of times in fact. The Greek word used in the text is idou.

Why not simply translate it as “look”? Well, because that’s a different word! The Greek text uses different words for “looking for” (often translated as “seek”) and even a particular word for “look” when it means directing all of our attention on some one particular thing. Behold, however, is something very particular. Behold means more than seeing with the eyes, but rather also with the heart. To “behold” means more than just to look and see: it means to experience, to discern and to perceive with an inward disposition.

Maybe we (in our modern culture) don’t use the word often because we don’t do it often!

Throughout the Christmas story we are told not to look, or to see, but to BEHOLD!

To name but a few:

The angel Gabriel told Mary, “behold you will conceive and bear a son.”

The angels told the shepherds, “behold, I bring you news of great joy!”

The evangelist said of the visit of the Magi, “behold, the star came to a rest over the place where the young child was.”

This Christmas, have we spent anytime “beholding” or are we only looking and seeing? Have we taken the time to let these things we celebrate- the songs we sing, the mangers we visit, and the lights we string – sink in?

In the life of the Church Christmas Day is such a huge celebration that 24 hours cannot contain it, and Christmas Day actually lasts for 8 calendar days. We call this, the octave of Christmas. Then the Christmas Season itself does not technically end until the Baptism of the Lord, January 12th. Some hold to the “old days” and consider the season to stretch until February 2nd, and the Feast of Candlemas. Why do we need to “drag out” Christmas?

So we have time to behold!

We should “behold” the message of the angel to Mary, the visitors to the manger, the message of the prophets, and the terror of Herod in the massacre of the innocents. We should “behold” the visit of the Magi, and consider the incredible meaning for us today. We should “behold” the wood of the manger, and consider how on Good Friday we are invited to “behold the wood of the cross”; how at Christmas one Joseph cares for the body of Jesus, and at Good Friday it will be another Joseph…how in both instances Mary cradles him in her arms, and wraps him in swaddling clothes. In short we should “behold” how the wood of the manger means nothing without the wood of the cross.

My dear friends don’t let Christmas go by without taking time to “behold.” For us as Christians, Christmas is about way more than carols, ugly sweaters, and porcelain villages.

In fact it’s even about more than the birth of Jesus…it’s about the truth of Jesus!

Just as Scripture says that Mary “pondered all these things in her heart”, we too should do the same!