Year after year we make our way to the manger, to see mystery, to remember reality, to know again the Word Made Flesh. The holy Word informs and fills all of life, not just by the manger
but all through the messy world we live in. We dare not forget that it is there, in the fleshy world, where Christ most mysteriously and fully dwells. God set that pattern on Christmas: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory… full of grace and truth.”
Just as God is known in flesh, not hidden in heaven, just as Christ showed God’s own heart as he touched the leper, the bleeding woman, the rich young ruler, the little children, just as he showed his love in the garden, on the cross, showing us God in flesh, we can trust that God fills every space and time, every corner and crevice of creation.
The presence and mystery of God is there in the joy of every baby’s birth, in the relationships marked by conflict and stress, in the lonely nights and days after the death of a loved one, in locker rooms and libraries, workrooms and offices, in labs and the construction sites, the stores and restaurants. Christmas is the sign, the touching reminder of mystery, of reality, of the Word made flesh.
Last February, Steve and my dad and I made a trip to Mexico City. We wandered into the Iturbida Palace, a gallery space in a historic building. There was an exhibit of Nacimientos Navideñas, Nativity Scenes from all around Mexico. We saw so many different types, clay, wood, textiles, straw and other natural materials, metal, glass, porcelain, paper, paper mâché, you name it. The signs said there were over 2500 pieces. They were spectacular—so intricate and detailed, creative. One aspect that impressed me was the inclusion of so many ordinary parts of life—traditional Mexican scenes with Mexican blankets, dress, and sombreros; musical bands, mariachi, banda, and string bands; one scene included a car and electric poles and wires behind the stable. We saw not only donkeys and camels and sheep but amadillos and iguanas. Some were in the style of an Arbol de la Vida, Tree of Life.
More than the traditional nativity scenes, these Mexican representations bring the current reality into the creche. We see the incarnational nature of truth, that the Word Made Flesh is life’s pattern, God fills and inhabits every corner of life, draws all things together.
The mystery of the incarnation, the birth of Christ, stretches through all of life. I remember learning that lesson one hot June day in my first parich. I had entered the courtyard of a nursing home in Albert Lea and saw the 95-year-old woman I had come to visit. The sunlight reflected off the chrome wheels of her chair as she sat soaking in the warmth, the rays on her skin. She asked my help to remove her other shoe so all her toes could feel the sunny heat. After I knelt at her feet we sat together and gloried in the moment.
She told me she didn’t like the belt they used to keep her from falling from her chair. She didn’t think it was necessary. “I’ll keep trying to get them to take it off. But, if I can’t, well, I’ll bear it,” she said. “This is the life we have. We have to live it.”
We went back to listening to the birds until the sun got too warm and I moved her to a shady spot under a blooming Mountain Ash tree. “Oh, that’s better,” her gentle voice said. Then, “What’s this?” as petals dropped onto her lap. She breathed deeply. “Oh, my…” is all she said, with a look of contentment. She began to speak of the veins in her bony arms that pulsed so prominently under her paper-thin skin.
I had come to bring her communion, blood for blood. As I prepared the little kit with silver plate and glass cup, I considered the blood of life that coursed so strongly through her veins. I knew that she had been priest to me that day. I was not really bringing the Holy to her, she lived in Holy space already, aware of God’s grace and beauty present through ordinary elements of nature and peaceful quiet sharing.
Where is the home of God? The words of scripture echo in my mind. “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them.” (Rev 21: 3) God is with us, Emmanuel. What makes space holy? It is more than the bread and wine, more even than the birth of Christ that hallow this space, that hallows this night. The incarnation that hallows all creation. “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 14)
I remember another crisp, early winter day when I stood next to the steel rail of a farrowing stall. A phone call had come, inviting me and my young child to watch the baby pigs being born. We were city folk, relatively new to the countryside. Standing by the gigantic mother pig, many times as big as my young child, I realized that this visit was not about the birth of piglets or my raptly attentive child.
An awareness of human frailty was palpable in the small tight-knit farming community. Over the previous weekend a neighbor had been admitted on a 72-hour hold to a regional hospital’s stress unit. As farmers will, they gathered by the dozen to divide the man’s chores and complete long-neglected tasks.
“I should have been there for him earlier… I should have recognized the signs,” the farmer softly said as we watched the tiny pigs nuzzle and suckle.
“It took us all by surprise,” I answered. We were both remembering a day, months past, when he and I sat with his wife at their kitchen table making phone calls to the same stress unit, arranging treatment for her.
“She’s doing really well now,” he almost whispered.
“I know,” I nodded and squeezed his arm.
It was there, in the ripe carnal world, steam rising from the straw, in his world, where that farmer could speak of the holy matters he couldn’t utter inside the hallowed walls of church. As I stood in muddy boots I heard the ring of Luke’s words, “And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the Inn. (Luke 2: 7)
Christ, the Incarnate One, shows us that no matter where we are, we are standing on holy ground. As Athanasius wrote in his essay, “On the Incarnation of the Word” in the 4th century, “No part of Creation is left void of Him. He has filled all things everywhere.”
Merry Christmas.