If you flew in from Mars just before Christmas, what would you think the holiday is about? Buying stuff. Lots of it. As my son Stephen put it, “It makes sense that Christmas is our biggest holiday since it celebrates our true American religion—consumerism.”
But what if, as Martian visitors, we looked a bit closer? We might see a sweet (“no crying he makes”) white baby in a manger, watched over by a mother in blue, with sweet smelling hay, cows, sheep gathered around. Unlike most stables, there’s no manure in sight. Even the shepherds smell pretty good. And there are no dirty diapers.
What’s odd about this picture? It goes precisely against the most radical truth in Christian faith— that of incarnation with all its messiness. While we know those early Christians took an already existing Roman holiday and invested it with meaning to come up with “Christmas,” the holiday was originally the Feast of the Incarnation. What does that mean? “Incarnation” means “taking flesh,” kind of like chili con carne means chili with meat.
Those early Christians took a Roman holiday to blend with their Feast of the Incarnation—an excellent idea since their message was so shocking. Greek and Latin philosophy held up the Good—which was the wholly spiritual, rational, and male. They knew what was the Bad—the earthly, female, and emotional. When those early followers of Jesus preached about a God who would choose to identify with flesh, pain, and humanity—this was shocking, even revolting to those hearers.
Over the years the Church sold out more fully to Greek and Latin philosophical thought (see for example, ideas of celibacy) than it did with its true roots in Judaism’s earthiness. In doing this the Church moved away from the centrality of incarnation, of “God with us.” You see this on the right, where conservatives have almost ignored Christ’s life to focus on his death on the cross. On the left, liberals have focused on Christ as paradigm of a way to live. Both sidestep the incarnation.
At the heart of Christian faith is God’s choice to come close. God could have chosen distance: contemplating from a detached, divine reverie, creating inanimate objects and slinging them around the universe. Or God could just be, masked with a passive face (like the Buddha), gazing beyond pain.
But no, the face of God is spun with joy, drawn by pain, creased with greeting. God avoids realms of esoteric understanding, wandering instead into the mud of identification, the sweat and dirt of costly involvement. In flesh we endure heat, cold, toothache; in flesh we fear the rapist, the cancer. In the Incarnation, things heavenly and earthly are gathered into one: one in the naked flesh and folds of God. The spit of God mixed with the dirt of Galilee to make a healing paste.
The Feast of the Incarnation is the time to dance to the descending scales of God’s throwing off omnipotence. The true Christmas story scares us. If God chose vulnerability we might need to do the same. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us— God closer than close. And here’s the good news: when we come to the real stable, we don’t have to smell good. In fact a smell of earthiness (and even manure) fills the air. Come as you are!
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
Leave a Reply