“Do you hear what I hear? A child shivering in the cold.”
What’s so Merry about it Anyway?
Good morning and Merry Christmas. We flutter between the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas wars. We notice a lot more people in stores and definitely hear different music playing on the radio. People smile and say “Merry Christmas,” and this is supposed to be a positive greeting, but it somehow doesn’t go beyond the smile. For the first time this year, I heard someone use the term “giftmass,” and while new, it was all too familiar because a lot of people, and especially children, think of gifts during Christmas –getting or giving gifts. Christmas is spoken of in many ways but what is Christmas really all about? What is the rational behind Christmas? I wonder how we would respond if we had to answer honestly. The average Joe might mutter something about Jesus being born, but even that doesn’t register anything unique. What is so “merry” about it? Jesus was born….so what? Furthermore, how can we celebrate what we don’t see any significance in?
Process Should Produce the Product
The incarnation of Christ, the birth of Jesus, the invasion, whatever you may call it, can be appreciated from many different perspectives. The one perspective I’d like to highlight in this post is with respect to what the birth of Jesus says about our common humanity. Most people associate Christianity with a ticket to escape the current human situation and eject into a heavenly bliss. The hope of many Christians today is that after they die they will be joined with God in a spiritual enterprise of peacefulness on clouds while playing harps. This view is stated by good intentioned people but it doesn’t jive with the birth of Jesus. There is a direct disconnect between escaping to an eternal bliss in spiritual bodies and the birth of Jesus. What I mean is that the product doesn’t naturally flow from the process. We know from Scriptures and church history that Jesus was fully human(Jn. 1:1-5, 1 Jn 1:1). Therefore, if the end goal is to NOT be human and instead to become a spiritual creature, then why was Jesus born a human? Why didn’t God simply send a spirit, or a ghost of some sort? If God’s goal, as some claim, is to take his Christians to a spiritual state of bliss, then why would He Himself become a human? Apple trees beget apples and orange trees beget oranges. The human Jesus saves human people for a human state. The process produces the product. We cannot dream of a product (heavenly bliss) that is not produced by the process (fully human Jesus). Now some may argue that Jesus had to become human so that he could pay the penalty for our sins and that was only possible through a human agent. And I think to myself, doesn’t that limit God? After all, couldn’t God have saved humanity through any means he desired? If he is the one who thought it up in the first place, then why did he ordain it THIS way? Therefore, we must remain consistent in our argument from top to bottom –the product must be consistent with the process. That is, we must acknowledge that Jesus being a human does not jive with our hopes of NOT being human. A bird uses bird resources to eat bird food. It doesn’t use bird resources to eat kangaroo food.
The Birth of Jesus As an Affirmation
So how does Christmas affirm our humanity? For starters, Jesus was born (I can’t say that enough). He became a human. He had to go through the womb just like the rest of us. His birth was bloody, smelly, and real. He probably had to be slapped in the back so that he could breathe his first breath. I’m sure there were germs all around, and his mom screamed because of the pain. He was born in a dangerous world where the ‘powers that be’ were running over the weak. He was born during economic crisis and warring governments. He was born when one of the most violent and manipulative dictators ruled with an iron fist. 
God did not shy away from the real human situation. He didn’t try to get around what it means to be a human. He wasn’t far off in a heavenly bliss but right in the thick of the blood and dirt. He wasn’t born in a palace or a germ-free zone. He didn’t get special treatment. He was born a commoner’s birth.
Bethlehem was no more significant then any other small town in the grips of a megapower (Turlock, Ceres). And with that in mind, we can confidently say that if being human wasn’t something that God looked down upon then neither should we! And that is why Christmas is so important. Christmas reminds us that we have infinite worth simply because we are. Christmas reminds us that our problem isn’t that we’re human, rather it’s that we’re not human enough. Jesus was fully human and that is what we should seek to be. Jesus did not sin; that is, he did not act less than human. When we sin we shouldn’t say things like, “well I’m only human.” No, rather, we should say, “wow I just acted less than human.” Christmas reminds us that it’s okay to be human and that we should strive to be fully human as Jesus was. And so all of us in some way, shape, or form feel ashamed to be human because we notice that we don’t live up to the full humanity which Christ lived. BUT, we have hope. We know that we can be redeemed; we can be fully human because God saw the less than human activity and believed it could be different. He knew we could be different, and so he became one of us and showed us. If God had hope for this mixed up humanity then surely we should have hope no matter our position? Christmas is about a new beginning. Christmas is the birth pains of hope. Now we have seen the glory of the 2nd Adam the fully human man Jesus. We need more of THAT. The one thing that I’d like to highlight with respect to Christmas is that being human can be a a very beautiful thing. It is not to be frowned upon. Instead, it is to be celebrated. It is embraced by God, and it should be embraced by us.
On the other end of the spectrum is the ugliness of humanity on a wooden cross. Two fixed beams which depict the lowest of the low. A wooden cross which captures a broken humanity. But we don’t have to stay there, do we? The grave is empty, and the resurrection, just like the incarnation, is an affirmation of a new humanity in Jesus. Jesus was resurrected with the same body he was born with (flesh and blood) –another stamp of approval on the human condition. We look to the past and remember Christmas, the invasion, but we also look to the future for resurrection, of which Jesus is the first fruits. Once again, in the resurrection we see life in the midst of death. (Can’t wait for Easter blog! and part 2 next year) 
Any thoughts?
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