The Message I Find In The Familiar Story
by t. loessin
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| The Familiar Story Luke 2:1-20 |
(and here they have pointed to such things as
- the effort I put into my Christmas decor each year,
- my insistence on keeping alive the tradition of mailing out a great stack of self-designed & self-crafted holiday cards each year,
- my clear fondness for the season's ritual gatherings in homes of friends and family and attendance at Candlelight Services)
-- how, they ask me, how do I reconcile this passion for the Christmas story and its many traditions with my typically more academic view of scripture, my stoic outlook and general disdain for sentimentality, and my decades-long interest in Process Theology?
I understand their hint at perceived discontinuity. The standard Christmas story - preached from pulpits, performed in pageants, colored on cards, and sung in songs - depicts Jesus as some sort of perfect God baby. Indeed, despite some bellowing cattle in his presence, the carol tells us “the baby awakes, but little lord Jesus no-o-o crying he makes!” And so a critical reviewer like me might be expected to respond with a biting, "Good Lord, he couldn't even be a normal baby who cries?"
Not that I ever would, I love the story too much.
A study of church history reveals that early Christian loyalty to Greek philosophy led to an over concern with Jesus’ physical makeup. As a consequence we had
centuries of bickering in the Church over the nature of Christ – fully human,
or fully divine? Was Jesus our God in human
form, the Incarnate one? For some
Christian traditions the answer became – absolutely fully divine. And for them, yes, the Triune God died on the
cross. Hmmm…
Other people
of faith will steer toward the fully human direction. And yet these folk will recoil at any suggestion Jesus may have been in an intimate
relationship with someone at some point in his life; that he may have – God forbid – made errors
in judgment or action; or perhaps woke up one morning with a pimple on his
nose. Surely not Jesus! And so for them, the
answer to the question of how Jesus can be both God and human is often to
present him as the most perfect human; one who doesn’t actually behave like a
human at all.
Rather, we are fundamentally made up of relationships in which we are
in a state of continuous process or a state of becoming
with other
beings in our contemporary world;
with our past ancestors who laid the
foundation out of which we evolve;
and with an Eternal Spirit (or, God) that flows through all living things.
As
part of our relational becoming,
we incarnate God
by hearing and
acting on God’s call in the world.
Looking at reality in this way changes the
meaning of the incarnation in a few key ways:
1. It is
possible to be human and to incarnate God. In other words, humanity and
divinity are not mutually exclusive substances or identities. More importantly
following God or becoming Christ-like does not require the abandonment,
dismissal, or punishment of bodies- either our own or others.
2. Jesus
was not the only incarnation. The nativity story is not the story of a single
miraculous event but rather the revelation that all people can express God in
the world. Jesus’ incarnation was indeed special, which is a longer
conversation, but it was also a testament to the capacity of humanity to do
God’s work in the world.
3. Incarnation
is not a one-time act. It’s an ongoing process in which God’s call is heard
over and over again and acted on continuously. Jesus was not only born the Son
of God but became it. The incarnation happened over the course of his life…as
it does for us as well. We are all in a
state of, not being, but becoming.
4. Lastly,
Jesus’ relationships made him who he was. Not only his relationship with God
but with his family, his ancestors, his context, and his community. In
particular, Mary was not an empty vessel, chosen at random. Who she was, where
she was, and how she was in the world all made a difference to the person Jesus
became.
So yes, the Nativity matters. Not because it’s the
miraculous story of a virgin birth of a God baby but because it is a revelation
of the sacredness of all human beings and their own unique potentiality, a
testament to big hope born in small and mundane ways, and a reminder that it’s
a life’s work to incarnate the call of God. Each of us comes to that moment of
acceptance at our own pace.
When one examines the story of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels – from the cradle to the grave – perhaps the most truly revealing human moment is that moment of personal crisis in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46). Even Jesus, the Incarnate One, has that moment of ah-ha! He understands in that moment of anguish that the progression his life has been on, is presently on, is headed -- can not be undone.
Those who have parented a particularly willful child know this truth that each of us in our own time will come to learn -- that it is not our will, but God’s will that we’re meant to pursue in this lifetime. Resistance to that Spirit of our Nature is…well, futile and goes against our Incarnate selves.
It is the moment of Enlightenment when one realizes that it is only in denying our self in order that we may look beyond ourselves at the larger world around us can the Good be accomplished, the Kingdom come, Peace be on Earth.
So yes, I celebrate the Nativity.
God's Will be done,
on Earth as it is in Heaven...
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More of Terry's Written Works
Favorite Articles:
Terry’s “Good Living” Guide:
Avoid the 3 PsBsSs
Processed Foods, Phthalates, Plastics;
Beef, Butter, Breads;
you’ll be feeling better in no time!
Avoid the 3 F’s
misinformation, fear, anger and hate!
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