Christmas

Christmas Day.  The church bells are ringing, a plane is still flying overhead and the birds sing and soar as normal.  The sky isn’t closed and grey today, it is open with delight, brightness shining from the still hidden sun.  What a thing it is to think about God becoming man.  A folly or impossibility to some, and a matter of common knowledge that fails to thrill for others. Let’s mix them up.  Let’s imagine what it means, what it was like.

It means the easy discourse I have with God, the awareness of spirit in my being and my world, wasn’t always there.  God as distant, other, fearsome Lord would be what was known and worshipped.  Let’s think of that God becoming human, and not just perfect, authoritative man but small, vulnerable child.  Because for God to become human meant sharing in all our weakness and vulnerability, not just our strength.  And it wasn’t like acting, slipping on a persona while you visit earth for a season.  It was a real becoming, like awaiting the birth of a precious child in all their newness, but this time the child was yourself. 

Did it feel like coming home, filling the shoes where previously you had only shone in the heart?  Did you enjoy the ripple of muscle and the tingling of skin?  And the knowledge and love that comes hard won?  Did you want to scoop us all up to heaven with you?  How did you cope with letting us go and trusting our freedom and inner compass to bring us home in the end?  I’m glad you had friends, real friends who were men and women you could live and laugh and argue with.  I would hate to think of you being alone, or of a God who couldn’t make friends.  And you were true to them although they frustrated you and let you down.  What a wonder we celebrate today – the birthing and earthing of God.