Christmas Wonder

With tears in my eyes, the tree lights shined even more. It was the dark of morning. David Tolk's album, "In Reverence," was playing in the background. I'm alone; it's 6 AM. The wonder of the moment and the reason for the day settled upon me. It came with a spirit of peace and awakening. I needed this.

Like so many on Christmas day, I imagine the birth of a child. Finally born after hours of uncertainty and suffering I can't ever know. I, like many of us, can only wait.

A baby is vulnerable. It's completely dependent unable to care for itself. This is the story of one of life's miracles. A baby that will confront religious leaders and privileged politicians, face an unnecessary death after talk of being born again. Knowing the story haunts the moment for me. I'm also haunted by my own experience of becoming a father. The overwhelming feelings of connection at the sight of my children's birth. By body remembers the immediate desire to comfort and protect them. When I met my adopted daughter, the same feelings came. These feelings return this morning, but in the arc of the Christmas story.

My eyes fill with tears at the mystery of it all: new life, incredible vulnerability, absolute dependence, interconnection, and unshatterable hope...the kind that makes indescribable pain possible when it's lost. I'm sure moments of Christmas-wonder like this have happened for centuries. Reflecting on Christmas-wonder is evidence of the power of the story.

Too many Christians - way too many - don't know or appreciate faith in the human, vulnerable, and dependent Jesus. They choose to know and worship the miraculous supernatural godman. That's not Christianity. Faith in the incarnation isn't faith in magic. Its faith in grace that comes through the most vulnerable aspects of human life - dependence, despair, even death.

Christmas makes me stop and wade through the mystery of it all. Human life is mystery enough. The crude humanity of the messiah story is arresting. It's what makes Christmas so important. The incarnation is so central, so enduring.

It's the bodily [even bloody] experiences of birth. The waiting. New life amidst the smells of animals. It's the physical ache of oppression and longing for political expectation. That's what a coming messiah does. Messianic hope is hope for an anointed one who comes in the flesh.

It's the hope for peace after generations of violence, injustice, and exile. Peasants, commonfolk, the lame, sick, scapegoated and outcast - these are the all-to-humans who Jesus comes to. He dies as one of them. Sinners and the crucified are problematic unnecessary people that the powerful, wealthy, privileged, and self-righteous would rather rid themselves and forget. All-too-human. It begins at birth, on Christmas.