In the poem “Salutation,” which references Luke 1:39-45, Luci Shaw writes:
Framed in light,
Mary sings through the doorway.
Elizabeth’s six-month joy
jumps , a palpable greeting,
a hidden first encounter
between son and Son.
And my heart turns over
when I meet Jesus
in you.
I believe the the aspect of Christianity that dazzles and amazes me most is Emmanuel. Emmanuel is a Hebrew word, spoken by the prophet Isaiah among others, that means literally “God with us“. This baffles me, confuses me, embraces me and transforms me. Never more than now during Advent.
The idea that God is among us is revolutionary to me. As John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” I simply love this for more reasons than I can share. The news to me that God became human like me. That Jesus is the message of Christianity. God became one of us and moved into our neighbourhood, our turf. No longer far off (even though he was near), no longer separate.
St. Augustine’s familiar words hit the mark, “For You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until we find rest in You.” The human race needs God, the Creator, because it is built into the very core of our nature to know Him intimately. Without Him, we are incomplete, empty, unfulfilled, restless, all because we are living life contrary to the purpose for which we were made. (Dr. Richard P. Bucher)
So there is the Christmas part of that: the baby in the manager, cold for the first time? weeping? hungry? Just like a tired, cold or weeping humanity. Eventually laughing, joyful, brilliant and wise like a laughing, joyful, brilliant and wise humanity. Suffering, experiencing pain, experiencing friendship. The best and truest human. I remember hearing once that Jesus was here not only to save humanity but to show us what it means to be truly human. Because he was fully and completely human, he is our perfect example of revolutionary humanity.
And then there is the other part of Emmanuel: God is with us now. Present in these “jars of clay” of our bodies, we carry the spark of the divine. So that we are, as Christ-followers, supposed to be the hands, feet, mouth and heart of Jesus on earth.
The Cradle
For us who have only known approximate fathers
and mothers manque, this child is a surprise:
a sudden coming true of all we hoped
might happen. Hoarded hopes fed by prophecies,
old sermons and song fragments, now cry
coo and gurgle in the cradle, a babbling
proto-language which as soon as it gets
a tongue (and we, of course, grow open ears)
will say the big nouns: joy, glory, peace;
and live the best verbs: love, forgive, save.
Along with the swaddling clothes the words are washed
of every soiling sentiment, scrubbed clean of
all failed promises, then hung in the world’s
backyard dazzling white, billowing gospel.
Eugene H. Peterson
(I love that poem. The image it paints on my soul stays with me for days.)
It really humbles me to realise how little I let Jesus out. And I don’t mean “evangelizing” (what a horrid word these days) or gravely confronting people to ask them “if you died tonight, where would you end up?”
I mean, my life of verbs and nouns reflecting Jesus: loving, forgiving, embracing, welcoming. Flinging wide open the doors of love to humanity.
I am dazzled by the word Emmanuel for all that means in my life and for all of humanity. God is with us. Amongst us, walking around, not only in the flesh but in the spirits of millions. Present and alive and active.
