It’s not always a good thing when the first become last and the last first. When otherwise effective leaders embarrass themselves to the point of resigning their posts, we lose good leaders. When underachievers get promoted to the point of their incompetence, the Peter Principle prevails. And when the God of the universe becomes so humanized that the divine distinctives disappear, the creation falls into disarray.
Yes, I know about Christmas. We’ll get to that. But first think this through with me.
When Moses encountered God on the mountain, he was required to go barefoot on such holy ground. The mountain shook. Thunder clapped. A threatening fire roared in a bush before him. He “hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”
When Elijah journeyed to Mt. Sinai, he was blown about by the wind, shaken by an earthquake and scalded by fire. God was not found in those elements, but they set a fearful stage for the prophet’s quiet encounter with Holiness.
When Isaiah encountered God, the thresholds shook, the place filled with smoke, and he wailed, “Woe is me! … my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Overwhelming encounters are not limited to the B.C. era. When the last living apostle saw God enthroned, he “fell at his feet as though dead.”
It was to a people saturated with such images of God that Jesus was born in a stable. What a stunning contrast his lowly birth provided. Who in their right minds would have imagined that the God of the universe, before whom the best of us would crumble in fear and unworthiness, was now present, wrapped in swaddling cloths? Who could have possibly identified this one as “Emmanuel” — literally, “With us [is] God”?
Modern-day Americans — both secular and devout — tend not to think of God or anybody else for that matter — in any kind of exalted way. We tweet political leaders. We gape at paparazzis’ photos of the rich and famous. We call teachers by their first names. We colloqualize the King’s English. And we humanize God on our own, comfortable terms.
Our favorite adjective is “awesome,” but we’ve taken the “awe” out of the word.
So when it comes to celebrating Christmas, we have a major dilemma on our hands. Oh, we can stage a nativity play with children playing the parts of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and magi. And we can give gifts. And we can join the angels in singing heavenly carols. But do our children, do we ourselves, get the point of Emmanuel? Or have we taken the “el” out of the word, and, in our desacralized collective self-absorption, substituted just another first person plural pronoun, hence, “Emmanuanu,” i.e., “With us is us”?
Actually, amid the cycle of days, Christmas does hold forth a vision that conjoins the first and last, the exalted and the humble, the royal and the common. Its juxtaposition of lowly shepherds with exalted angels, of a country couple with stately magi, of the Lord of lords with the poorest of the poor, holds in vivid tension the human with the divine.
It’s in that juxtaposition — “fully God and fully human” — that we find the potency of the gift of Christ’s incarnation. Here, the pre-existent God of the universe, the second member of the Trinity, has relinquished the privileges of heavenly exaltation, trading that for contingent human existence, in order to bring humans into heavenly citizenship. And Jesus has done so, knowing that lurking down the road there awaits a cross whereupon he will make the ultimate sacrifice in order to atone for — carry — the sins of the world.
That concurrence of heaven and earth finds reinforcement in the lyrics of many nativity hymns. They help us capture and convey this wondrous good news. One that ought to be sung more often:
Thou didst leave Thy throne and
Thy kingly crown,
When Thou camest to earth
for me;
But in Bethlehem’s home was
there found no room
For Thy holy nativity:
Oh, come to my heart,
Lord Jesus!
There is room in my heart
for Thee.
