On Christmas morning, the Church gives us one of the most beautiful lines in all of Scripture: “The Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us..” Not “visited.” Not “observed from a distance.” God pitched his tent among us. The translation is literally, “TABERNACLED WITH US.”
That image would have meant something very concrete to the people who first heard it. A tent is not a palace. A tent is temporary, vulnerable, and close to the ground. When you pitch a tent, you choose to share the same weather, the same dust, the same dangers as everyone else. And that is exactly what God chose to do.
At Christmas, God does not solve the world’s problems from heaven. He enters them. He pitches his tent in a world that is poor, politically tense, and unsettled. He is born under occupation, into a family with no security and no room at the inn. From the very beginning, God’s tent is set up among people who know anxiety, fear, and uncertainty.
That matters for us today. Because many people come to Christmas tired. Some are worried about the state of the world. Some are anxious about grain and beef prices, health issues, violence, division, or whether compassion still has a place in public life. Some are grieving or carrying private burdens no one else sees. Christmas does not deny any of that. It simply says: God is here.
God pitched his tent not among the powerful, but among ordinary people. Not in safety, but in vulnerability. Not in certainty, but in trust. Which means there is no human experience where God refuses to dwell. No boundary he will not cross. No darkness he will not enter. No life he considers unworthy of his presence.
And this changes how we see God. God is not distant. God is not impatient with our struggles. God does not wait for us to get our lives together before showing up. Christmas proclaims a God who moves in, who stays, who shares our condition from the inside.
It also changes how we see one another.
If God pitched his tent among us, then every human life becomes sacred ground. Every neighbor becomes a place where God is already dwelling. The child, the stranger, the immigrant, the poor, the forgotten—God has chosen to live there. To welcome them is to welcome him. To ignore them is to walk past the tent where God has chosen to stay.
Christmas morning is not about escaping the world for an hour of beauty. It is about seeing the world differently because God is in it. God pitched his tent among us—and he has never taken it down.
So today we rejoice.
Not because life is perfect, but because God is present. Not because all is calm, but because God is close. The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us—and that means we are never alone.
That is the good news of Christmas. May it fill our hearts and give us hope.
~ Fr. Adam Patras, OSB