The Test

He had to become like His brothers and sisters in every respect, so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. (Hebrews 2.17)

In Miracles, C.S. Lewis repeatedly returns to the Incarnation as the standard by which all other divine manifestations are measured. “Everywhere the great enters the little—its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness,” he writes. As one ponders his statement, the “almost” becomes inescapable. The greatness of love borne in Mary’s womb cannot be exaggerated. Yet its arrival in the tiny frame of a vulnerable, speechless, Infant is dumbfounding. Surely there must be a bigger test that captures the scale of God’s power. We want something larger than life to prove the enormity of God’s grace and faithfulness—something so utterly overwhelming and definitive that we can’t possibly mistake it for anything else.

But the Incarnation epitomizes God’s baffling ability to display unequaled mercy and might as “the great enters the little.” If we are ever to know—as the angel tells Mary—that nothing shall be impossible with God, we have to recalibrate our expectations of how God works and moves and reasons. God does great and wondrous works in little, ordinary ways. What looks like a newborn is God’s offer of new life. The little Child who seems so reliant on us at first will redeem us and reconcile us to our Creator. The powerless Babe with no home will establish God’s kingdom on earth.

Almost—we almost get it. But we can never fully comprehend the simplicity of God’s great plan. We’re wonderstruck that God would choose so tiny a vessel from which to pour out unconditional love and unfathomable forgiveness. The test for us is whether or not we truly believe what we’re seeing.

Second Chances

The LORD passed before Moses, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34.6)

In Exodus 34, Moses is in the worst imaginable predicament. Not long before, God met him on Mt. Sinai, set down some basic rules for Israel, and affixed promises of longevity and a new land as incentives for obedience. Coming off the mountain, Moses discovered Israel had succumbed to idolatry in his absence. In a rage, he smashed the tablets inscribed with God’s laws—and hence literally broke God's contract God with Israel. By all rights, God could say, “That’s that,” and leave Moses to manage Israel on his own. But God calls him back to the mountain and reissues the contract. Rather than dwell on Moses’s anger—rather than turn against Israel for its false worship—when God meets Moses again, the first thing God does is remind him Whom he’s dealing with: a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithful.

When we confront evidence that something’s gone haywire in our society, we must know that God is faithful. Idolatry—of a golden calf, a cartoon villain (as we’ve just seen), or anything else that supplants our love for God—will inevitably result in destruction. Yet God faithfulness is manifested in second chances. Whether on a scale that rivets global attention or in tiny ways that go unnoticed, harms we visit on others and ourselves are not cause for God to abandon us. We will suffer for our wrongs. But we’ll never be left alone. God calls us back to the mountain and reminds us we’re dealing with the LORD, the merciful, gracious, patient, loving, and faithful God of second chances.

What Makes Faith Miraculous

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14.31)

In her sermon “The Problem with Miracles”, Barbara Brown Taylor offers a canny observation about harms we inflict on ourselves by assuming God’s intervention directly corresponds to the quantity—or quality—of our faith. “If you are sick and getting sicker, it must be your own fault,” she writes. “Pump up your faith and ring the bell. Impress God with the power of your belief and claim your miracle as a reward.” To be sure, the miracle stories appear to support this notion. Time and again, Jesus tells people He heals, “Your faith has made you well.” Not My power. Your faith. And we see this dynamic in reverse in Peter’s famous water-walking experience. He and the other disciples are in a storm-tossed boat. They see someone walking across the waves. They think it’s a ghost until Jesus calls to them, telling them not to fear. But Peter’s not so sure. He says, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” (Matthew 14.28) Jesus beckons and Peter obeys. He does fine until a big wind frightens him. When he loses his footing and starts to sink, he cries, “Lord, save me!” Jesus catches him. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” He says.

I wish Matthew described Jesus’s tone, because it would tell us how to read His question. Is it a scold? A flat-out rebuke? Or is it delivered gently, with compassion? Since we don’t know, we assume Jesus is somehow blaming Peter for his failure. We make the same leap that mars our reading of other miracle stories: no faith, no miracle, case closed. But we should be very cautious about trusting this presumption, as it exposes our lack of faith in God’s wisdom and judgment. If the working of miracles relies on how much faith we have, we reduce divine intervention into a bartering game—removing God’s mercy and grace from the equation. If healing and provision depend solely on our belief, what does that say about a God Who withholds them from us when we don’t meet “the faith standard”? Isn’t the time when faith runs low also when we need God most?

When we look past the miracle-winners to all of the miracle-losers (and they are legion, both in the Bible and daily life), we see this faith equation we’ve concocted for what it truly is: a twisted blame-game designed to let God off the hook. Surely God wants to heal everyone. Surely God wants to calm all of our storms. Surely God wants us all walking on water. If we’re not healed and at peace and trotting atop the surf, it’s must be our fault. And the danger in this cockeyed logic is revealed in our presumption that God’s decisions require explanation—which puts us exactly where Peter is, weighted down by what we see and feel, sinking fast in the soup of our misguided understanding of what faith is for and how it works.

Random interventions and spectacular turnarounds are not what make faith miraculous. Faith’s miracle is constantly displayed in its power to sustain us. The whole point of Peter’s venture isn’t that he doesn’t have enough faith to walk on water. It’s found in the hand that catches him when he starts to sink. “Lord, save me!” he cries, and Jesus reaches for him. I like to think the relieved and grateful expression on Peter’s face triggers Jesus’s question, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”—as if to say, “You knew I was here all the time. Didn’t you realize I would never let you drown?” Faith that God is with us, that God reaches us in our time of need, that God never stands by when life’s storms threaten to pull us under is a miracle all its own.

Do the Math

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18.21-22)

“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” was one of my grandmother’s favorite hymns. When she sang it to herself, she turned it into a prayer by replacing “Him” with “You”:

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust You

How I’ve proved You o’er and o’er

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus

O for grace to trust You more

I often hear her when I read Jesus’s admonition that we should forgive those who offend us many times (“seventy-seven” in some translations, “seventy times seven” elsewhere). I imagine Peter giving Jesus one of those “Really?” looks, and Jesus nodding with eyebrows raised, as if to say, “Trust Me.” All of this forgiveness calculus comes after Jesus lays out a very specific protocol for handling differences with fellow believers. He hasn’t mentioned forgiveness, but it’s clear that He’s concerned about unaddressed slights and sins enslaving His followers. Peter catches Jesus after the lesson and asks, “Should I forgive a repeat offender seven times?” It’s a plausible question, albeit a somewhat self-aggrandizing one. Since the Transfiguration, it’s increasingly apparent that Peter’s being groomed to take over when Jesus is gone, and he wants to reassure the Lord he’s got the right stuff. To his surprise, Jesus says he's grossly miscalculated what will be asked of him—either he’s off by 70, or a factor of 70. In any case, Peter’s magnanimous offer isn’t nearly enough. Really?

When we do the math, we realize the magic isn’t in the numbers. It’s in the product. Multiplied forgiveness goes beyond incidental pardon and seeds in us the daily practice of grace. Christ calls us to a transcendent state that frees us of weights we take upon ourselves by withholding forgiveness—heavy chains of resentment, confusion, despair, and cynicism. It’s not as simple as telling those who wound us, “It’s okay.” It’s not okay for someone to hurt us, denigrate us, or inflict violence of any kind on us. Yet the only way to overcome our pain and disappointment is to return grace for ill will. To do as Jesus says requires us to trust it’s in our best interest to repudiate insults with grace. So when we rework the equation, replacing the numbers with Christ’s meaning, this is what we get:

Forgiveness X Trust = Grace

Forgiveness multiplied by trust yields Christ-like grace—the same bottomless grace we seek for ourselves, no matter how many times we fail. Do the math. Forgiveness isn’t really about mercy we extend to those who fail us; it’s about witnessing the grace Christ extends to us.

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus

O for grace to trust You more

Free-Giveness

If anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but to some extent—not to exaggerate it—to all of you. This punishment by the majority is enough for such a person; so now instead you should forgive and console him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. (2 Corinthians 5,7)

Healing They Need

Paul begins his second letter to the Corinthian church on a painful note. From the start, we sense something’s gone wrong, not only because of what he says, but also because the deft frankness typical of Paul’s style is gone out of the writing. He’s mincing words—something he very seldom does—and the strain is oddly disturbing. With unusual tact, he refrains from recounting the specifics of an incident that occasions his letter or naming the offenders behind it. As best we can tell from his introductory comments, he’s decided not to return to Corinth for a while, even though his travels would make stopping there convenient. It seems his previous visit was marred by a confrontation that threatened the church’s unity. Paul was obviously wounded, as were many in the Corinthian community, and for the sake of all, he writes to explain why he believes it would be best not to return to them until the wounds heal.

Now that the offender has been disciplined and repented of his error, Paul encourages the church to welcome him back into community. Yet Paul’s also keenly aware that many in Corinth feel very protective of him and may be reluctant to embrace the man who opposed their leader. They may continue to resent, distrust, and treat him harshly. Rather than welcome his return as an equal, they may begrudgingly allow him to rejoin them while never dismissing their low opinion of him as a troublemaker. This will not bring about healing they need, healing that will ease Paul’s mind about future visits. In 2 Corinthians 2.7, he writes, “So now instead you should forgive and console him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.”

Surpassing Pardon

It’s here that we get our first glimpse of Paul, the precise wordsmith and dynamic leader whom we admire. He replaces the Gospels’ customary word for “forgive” (aphiemi), which means “to let go, pardon”—as in forgiving a debt—with a more magnanimous one (charizomai) meaning, “give freely; impart grace; act favorably toward.” Paul asks more than usual from the Corinthians. He wants their forgiveness to surpass pardon. He urges them to dig deep into their reserves of compassion and summon the grace to restore the wrongdoer’s sense of self-worth and belonging. And he asks this for the good of all: for the man, for the Corinthians, and for himself. He concludes his supplication with this: “So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. I wrote for this reason: to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ. And we do this so that we may not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (v8-11)

Paul's adroit inclusion of “if I have forgiven anything” sends up a red flag that tells the Corinthians their forgiveness of the one who hurt him will make his forgiveness full and complete. Realizing this will be tough for some, he also notes that he’s watching them closely—testing them—to see if they’ll honor his request. In essence, he flips the situation, turning their willingness to extend grace to his former adversary as the litmus that proves they truly love him. Don’t stop at forgiving, he says; be free-giving.

Stuck in the Middle

I would guess that not one of us, at this moment, isn’t dealing with at least one situation that’s left us stuck in the middle somehow, stranded between our desire to stand for right while also deeply troubled about how our stance will affect those we believe are wrong. Break-ups are a classic case. When one partner wrongs another and their relationship ends, we support the wronged party. That’s an easy decision. Our response to the wrongdoer is much more complicated. We may love her/him as much or more than the other, yet our knowledge of the harm he/she caused encourages us to pull away. We hope we can forgive, offering true pardon that lets go. But we can’t bring ourselves to embrace the offender freely.

Restoration that can only be wrought by extending grace—by free giving—may ask more than we’re comfortable providing. That would look like disloyalty to the wounded person, whom we also love. But here we find Paul speaking as the hurt party, explicitly asking us to surpass lip-service pardon. “Freely give of your grace, act favorably toward, and console him,” he implores, “so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” He then tells us, “I’m waiting on your forgiveness so I can forgive.” Paul informs us that our unforgiving, ungracious attitudes and behaviors toward those who’ve harmed others actually impede both parties’ healing. In the course of this process, however, we should note that the offenders’ error has also been noted and dealt with fairly. “This punishment is enough,” verse 6 says. Once we’ve expressed our disappointment and anger, it’s time to move on to restoration. And this will indeed ask more of us than common forgiveness. We’ll need to dig deep. What’s more, we’ll have to deal with the unhappiness of those who can’t find it in themselves to give grace and favor freely. But better that than permitting our misfortune of getting stuck in the middle to delay or prevent much-needed healing and rectification.

Frank Assessment

One of Lent’s hardest tasks is offloading grudges and fears we carry because of personal injuries. Even though we pray daily, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” it’s an uphill battle to get this work done in anticipation of beholding Grace Incarnate at Calvary’s cross. We want to be free, clear, and unblocked by animosity and resentment, to know the cleansing Jesus purchased for us with His life. What we may overlook, though, are grudges we hold on behalf of others. Have we also forgiven those who’ve repented of sins against those we love, respect, or care about as victims of injustice? Are we too afraid of how we’ll be perceived to extend them the added grace that will bring about their restoration? Do we believe it is just of us to allow them to “be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow”?

What’s done cannot be undone. But the wounds it created can be healed once the harm is acknowledged and the offender repents. Lent’s call for self-examination includes frank assessment of our stance in situations that strand us in the middle. Are we mistaking dismissal and disdain for the offender as loyalty and compassion for the wounded? If so, we’re not giving freely and we’ve relinquished our middle position to become part of the problem. In conflicts that affect but don’t personally involve us, taking one side to the exclusion of the other undermines the healing of both.

Lent calls us not only to offload grudges and fears we hold as a result of personal injury. It also asks us to examine our responses as third-party observers of conflicts between others.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/03/12/free-giveness/.

Postscript: Questions 14 & 15

Why is often easier to forgive those who hurt us than those who hurt others?

How does our eagerness to offer compassion to the wounded while withholding it from the offender put us at risk of inflating our sense of importance—or outright pride?

What Now?

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in God.” (Lamentations 3.22-24)

A Timely Question

I don’t know what books high school kids read these days. Having heard that education's undergone many changes since my teens, they might not read books at all. Printed literature may be obsolete now, replaced by video and Websites. I hope not. There’s something exquisitely intangible about holding a book in hand—a mysterious comingling of the tactile and ephemeral that elevates reading into an immersive experience unlike any other. When there’s no screen sealing the writer’s thoughts and imagination behind glass, the distance between eye and page becomes a thin place of endless possibilities. If we let technology’s ease of use and cost-effectiveness rob our youth of this, we’ll be to blame when they haven’t the curiosity or stamina to venture beyond their narrows. Without advantages that can only be gained from learning by proxy—at length, in detail—in books, they'll pay dearly for being ill-equipped to meet life's demands and avoid its dangers.

In my youth, love of books was passed down from teacher to student and parent to child. Homes without bookcases were few and far between—and pitied. Our school’s storeroom shelves were lined with daunting titles that our instructors insisted we wrestle with. Looking back, their nerve to expose us to such emotionally fraught, politically charged literature is astonishing. We pondered class warfare and tyranny in A Tale of Two Cities; marital and psychological dysfunction in The Bell Jar; inhumanity and genocide in Heart of Darkness; madness and moral ambiguity in Crime and Punishment; bureaucratic intransigence and loss of identity in The Trial. Yet light always broke through; we always turned a corner to see what we were looking at wasn’t ordinary—that the characters’ sorrows and sacrifices resulted from being pushed to extremes. The Book of Lamentations, an anthology of five poems grieving the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, turns a similar corner. After going through extreme turmoil, the writer asks, “Now what?” What good remains and what good can come of the ordeal? With today marking our leave of Advent and Christmas’s extremes for the relative calm of ordinary time, it’s a timely question. Now what?

Despite All Evidence

Anyone who skates through Advent and Christmas—scanning the texts and images like museum exhibits—ends with the impression it’s all about angels and starlight, baby’s breath and happy endings. But we who do the homework know it’s not a pretty story. It’s a tale of common folks pushed to uncommon extremes, a saga fraught with raw emotion and charged with political peril. Reading the prophecies and Nativity accounts unlocks a thin place, where the veil between Heaven and Earth lifts to reveal the elegance of God’s plan. Every “i” is dotted, every “t” crossed. And the intricate rhymes that bring Christ into the world demand more of us than a passing nod. They insist we wrestle with their ugliness for our benefit. When we’re open to the narrative’s dark side, what we learn becomes ours to own.

So what have we learned? What good remains and what good can come of our experience? After years of trying to explain and rationalize why God permits Babylon to sack Jerusalem, level its Temple, and take countless Jews captive, Lamentations’ writer reaches an inexplicable, altogether irrational conclusion: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, God’s mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in God.’” (Lamentations 3.22-24) His sudden turnabout causes us to gasp. Really? None of it makes sense—until we back up to verse 21, where he says, “But this I call to mind.”

Ah, he’s been to the thin place of endless possibilities, where God’s ways defy logic. He’s not yet sure what to make of it, because he quickly relapses into depression. But even in the depths of his confusion a light shines. He sees that what he’s looking at isn’t ordinary. Good that outlasts his crisis, along with good because of it, will validate his trust in a God Who is ever faithful, despite all evidence to the contrary. He remembers that new mercies often come wrapped in weary hardship, waiting to emerge in wisdom and know-how he acquires while struggling to find them. Although pushed to extremes, he makes God his portion, knowing as little as that seems it’s more than enough to keep him going. We see in him exactly what we just observed in Isaiah’s stubborn hope, Mary and Joseph’s simple faith, the shepherds’ childlike curiosity, and the Magi’s rugged journey. To a one, they’re pushed to extremes, asked to take huge risks, and expected to believe things that no one with a spoon full of sense would dare consider. Still, light breaks through their haze. They present us with an infinitely powerful God wrapped in a tiny, fragile Infant Who looks at us with knowing eyes and asks, “Now what?”

The “What” We’ll Need

The irony of dubbing intervals between sacred seasons “ordinary time” is that real time is rarely ordinary. The “now” of everyday life can be so overwhelming we don’t get around to considering the “what.” That’s why this transition mustn’t be minimized as a calendar quirk or church thing. It’s a holy opportunity to make sure we leave Advent and Christmas with all they’ve given us. Every lesson learned, every discovery made, is a new mercy. Not one can be forgot, as it very well could be what we’ll need when now engulfs us.

We may need to reach for Mary when doubts rear up about God’s faithfulness and perfect plan. When we’re tempted to value ourselves more highly than others, we may have to summon the priceless hour we knelt beside gamy herdsmen to marvel at a homeless Child. We may have to recall the Magi’s enormous sacrifices and risks when we recoil from giving our best to a needy stranger. When we feel unjustly shut out, undervalued, or ignored, our only help may be recalling that Steadfast Love was born into a world that gave Him no room. Year in and year out we cross from Christmas into ordinary time with riches we didn’t expect to find—gifts too dear to discard, too vital to live without. The answer to “Now what?” starts with an inventory of what we’ve got. While our lists are never the same, nothing on them is ever ordinary.

And so we turn, O Lord, from the season to contemplate Your birth and resume everyday realities of ordinary time. May Your Spirit guide us so we’ll leave nothing behind and bring to mind what we need when now overwhelms us. Amen.

Today is when we inventory all we’ve gained from our Advent and Christmas sojourn, taking care to bring it with us as we return to ordinary time.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/10/what-now/

Postscript: What’s In Your Suitcase?

So I’m curious. What did you learn during your Advent and Christmas journey? Why is it essential that you not forget and leave it behind?

In a season that was strewn with invaluable discoveries for me, perhaps the greatest was renewed appreciation of simplicity. A confluence of unexpected events steered Walt and me to turn the volume way down this year. Rather than whipping up Christmas excitement—which I must confess we’re pretty good at—we just let it happen. And we both came out of the season refreshed and amazed, agreeing that it was one of the loveliest, purest Christmases we’ve ever known—and totally convinced we’ve stumbled on a better way.

Your turn…

No Better Way

Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2.4-7)

Marketable Allure

How easily our romance with the Nativity slips into sentimentality! We start with two young people inadequately prepared for the task God assigns them, making bold decisions based on visions and dreams. Other than Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, and her husband, Zachariah—who empathize with her, as they’re also dealing with a miraculous conception—the Gospels mention no family or community support. Even if loved ones support them, they’re nowhere to be found when Mary and Joseph need them most. God’s plan draws them away from home and strands them in an overcrowded village, where no one cares about them. They do their best with what they’ve got, which is next to nothing. Against all odds, they bring a healthy Child into the world. As they cope with what must seem like an insurmountable crisis, our focus is diverted to simultaneous events. Beyond Bethlehem’s walls, angels sing glad tidings to shepherds. In Jerusalem, prominent foreigners consult King Herod about Christ’s birth, first brought to their attention by an astronomical anomaly. The terrified new parents see none of this.

When the odd assortment of strangers converges on the lowly stable, our movie-fed reflexes kick in. We push the tiny barn from its secluded back lot, anchor it on a sleepy street, and tidy things up to make it presentable. We tamp down the dirt floor, shovel out the manure, rid the feed cribs of rats, and de-louse the livestock. Before the guests arrive, we make sure to discard bloody evidence of childbirth, bathe mother and Child, substitute a downy white comforter for torn rags binding the Infant’s movement, put both parents in fresh clothes, and iron out the exhaustion, stress, and panic creasing their faces. Presto! The mean reality of Christ’s birth is neatly revised for distinctly Western, middle-class, marketable allure, readily amenable to Christmas cards, kiddie pageants, and easily offended children of all ages.

Appallingly Substandard

Had it been possible to photograph the scene, we’d be so shaken by what it revealed that waves of horror and nausea would crush us. We’d have to ask, “What is God thinking?” It’s not enough for Jesus to be born when the most ideal birth scenarios are ghastly primitive. No, God works overtime to see Mary delivers the Child in conditions that the poorest, most disadvantaged mothers of her day would find appallingly substandard. We cringe to question God’s judgment, but outrage forces us to ask again, “What is God thinking?” It’s a question that God must welcome, though, given what its answer reveals.

By necessity, Jesus must live a lowly life. To make clear the God in Him stoops to reach us, our atonement can never be dismissed as a noble act of human kindness. We get all of that. Still, was it really necessary to subject Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to such horrible extremes? Surely there’s a better way to do this. After all, we’re talking about God here—our God of endless options, infinite wisdom, and incomparable power. If this was God’s Plan A, there had to be at least one Plan A+ that didn’t strip the Child and His parents of all dignity and pride. We can go down that road over and over—adjusting the math, tinkering with variables, inventing comparable confluences of theology, history, and science. Yet every time we’ll land at the same conclusion: there is no better way. For Jesus’s death to set new standards for love, tolerance, and mercy, His birth must be scarred by indifference, isolation, and disgrace. The intricately detailed symmetry is simply divine.

Compassion That Rocks the World

The Nativity and Crucifixion are two halves of a whole, both brutally demeaning, yet brilliantly decisive. Together they prove God brooks no middle ground to repair our broken relationship. It’s an all-or-nothing covenant founded on God’s desire to restore all we’ve lost, even though nothing we do warrants divine favor. In Philippians 2, Paul writes, “Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (v4-8) Christ’s sacrifice begins in Bethlehem, where Jesus opens His eyes to a birthplace unfit for a slave, and culminates at Calvary, where He shuts them on a lowlife’s cross. From the start, Christ renounces divine stature to attain our deepest despair.

Before placing Christmas’s cruelty on par with Good Friday’s atrocities, let’s consider the physics of God’s plan. Every human weakness God abhors springs from our unholy craving to come out on top. It pollutes us and our filth cascades on those we presume beneath us. Sin’s gravity (in every sense) is why there’s no better way—why there can be no middle ground. It’s why Paul says Christ “emptied Himself.” Since that’s the lowest one can possibly go, to claim superiority of any kind is to exalt oneself above Christ.

Bethlehem is where Christ unleashes a tide of compassion that rocks the world off its axis. High-low status gives way to a tableland where all stand equally, side-by-side. It’s as Isaiah 40 says: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (v4-5) The Nativity’s unspeakable sorrow spawns indescribable joy when we see how low Christ goes to free us of inequities, rejection, and despair. Christmas is the defining moment when the Word Made Flesh stands at the foot of sin’s corrosive cascade and swallows it up with God’s free-flowing love, acceptance, and grace. (Cue the angels: it's time to sing!)

Prepare our hearts and grant us courage, O Christ, to arrive at Bethlehem with clear eyes. May your glory be revealed in the splendor of what transpires in the filthy stable, instead of the sentimental, sanitized spectacle we’ve been sold. May the extreme lowliness we witness cure our unholy drive to be on top and heal the wounds inflicted on us by sin’s corrosive cascade. Amen.

Sentimentalizing the Nativity sanitizes its actuality—hindering our realization of how low Christ had to go to put an end to sin’s inequities and despair.