We have so many amazing pastors, priests, reverends and theologians among our friends in European Forum of LGBTI+ Christian Groups. We would like to use their competence and experience by inviting them to share a short reflection.

So here is a short Christmas reflection from Karen Onshuus from Norway:

Happy Christmas everybody! Actually, it’s said nine months to late. What we celebrate in Christmas is God becoming human. And that happened nine months earlier, when God became part of a woman's body.

To save humankind God made himself dependent of a woman’s body, of her biology. God became part of her cycle and nourished of her flesh.

He was born in a barn, a dwelling place for animals. The first to be told what had happened was shepherds, who inhabited a low-class occupation. It was not the strong, rich, and beautiful who were the first ones to find Christ, but the poor and powerless.

His birth was probably very unlike from what we see in our churches, filled as they are with gold and magnificent art. Or with the nativity scenes we keep in our houses. They tend to portrait a sweet little white baby, with white parents, surrounded by nicely dressed shepherds and a few clean animals.

Childbirth is not a romantic event. I think every woman will understand that, whether she’s given birth or not. It's pain, sickness and dirt, nothing like a Christmas carol.

In that pain, in blood and sickness, God became human. He was a little red and wrinkled baby. He was a poor and powerless child who had to flee the country with his parents because those in power was threatening his life. Like the people in Palestine, Ukraine, and other places are threatened today. Like our rainbow family are threatened in eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

Betlehem is situated in what used to be Palestinian area. I wonder what had happened with the newborn child of God if he had been born there today.

In the body of young woman, unmarried, poor, and shameful, God became one of us. She showed who she is. Not only an almighty glorious God in the high but an ordinary human being. Born the same way every one of us are.

That’s how they still come to us, rainbow people of the world, celebrating the mystery that God showed us the eternal love. We, who often are or has been mocked and looked down on for being who we are, are loved by the divine being.

A child is born in Betlehem. Let us contemplate that. And let us meet the newborn child of God with joy and praise.
To us an eternal saviour is born.

A blessed Christmas to all of us.