Christmas is a celebration of many divine ‘forgetfulness’. The story of this ‘oblivion’ begins with Mary, the Almighty God, who ‘forgot’ His divinity and nurtured humanity, the beginning of the Savior’s birth.
From the moment, Mary received the good news from the angel Gabriel
She ‘forgot’ the rules of the Jewish tradition of one generation – stoning to death if she was found pregnant before marriage. She also forgot her own dreams. Christmas became a reality when Mary’s ‘oblivion’ was added to God’s oblivion.
For Christmas, Joseph also felt ‘forgotten’ about many things. Joseph heard and understood the angels in the moments when he forgot the world and was asleep. Joseph ‘forgot’ all the rights, interests and dreams of a husband and father for Christmas.
The sages and kings who came to visit the Divine Child seemed to ‘forget’ many things. On their journey to Bethlehem in search of a stable, those who ‘forgot’ the palaces and rested in huts and by the roadside, and ‘forgot’ the company of companions and bodyguards, prepared for Christmas, pretending to ‘forget’ their riches.
Christ also felt ‘forgotten’ by many. ‘Forgetting’ the awareness of God and being born in the throes of poverty. And then the exodus of souls to Egypt. All the ‘forgetfulness’ of Christ was in the intensity of his love for man.
Christmas also invites us to some of these sacred ‘forgetfulness’. To forget an early meal before the cries of the other’s hunger. Christmas invites us to forget the illusions of the Internet, to smile at parents and the elderly, to forget the empty bottles during the holidays, and above all to live with the family, forgetting the impermanence of the world and aiming for eternity.