THE WORD BECAME FLESH: TO THE BABY JESUS, LYING IN A MANGER

Rev. Karen Pidcock-LesterFirst Presbyterian Church, Pottstown, Pa.Advent II 2015

Luke 1:26-38, 2:1-7John 1:1-18

IntroductionThe gospel of John says “the Word became flesh.”Those 4 words are worth taking some time to ponder. Like Mary, who pondered the angel’s words, in the coming weeks of Advent, we’d like to ponder what it means that Word became flesh.

The Apostle Paul says something akin to this in his letter to the Colossians, chapter 1. He says that Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus is God made visible.

So the question is, what do we see in this One who comes at Christmas? What do we discover about the Most High God by looking at the baby in the manger?

Let’s begin with a visual.I just happen to have one nearby…a baby.

This is Alicia. Just a few weeks old. Healthy, happy, little, dependent…fairly settled, but she has a good cry when she needs something. Other than her cry, she is helpless.

Alicia was born to two parents , Julie and John.There was a home waiting for her, a room made ready for her… in a country where she can live free… she has food, clean water, she’ll get an education…

When we ponder the mystery of the Word becoming flesh in the baby in Bethlehem, we can picture he was healthy, about the same size, with the same sort of combination of sweetness and squalling, cuddling and demanding … and helpless.

But we have to picture different conditions, of course. His parents are living in a country ruled by brutish tyrants – their cruelty is exposed in the actions recorded in the gospel. The emperor Augustus requires a woman who is 8 months pregnant to travel long distances to be counted for the tax rolls so the coffers of his empire can be filled; and the local tyrant Herod dispatches henchmen to break into homes and carry out mass killings of infants and children. And it’s all legal.

Very soon, this child in the manger will be like too many of the photos we have seen of children in the arms of frightened, desperate parents fleeing Syria, or climbing into boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Who knows how many places turned Jesus and his parents away before they found a safe place to settle down and make a home?

We must picture this child of Bethlehem with no room of his own, no crib of his own, on the margins society, probably in poverty.

With this in mind, let us ponder the mystery of the incarnation, when the Word, the pulsing heart at the center of the universe, became human and pitched his tent among us. Let us pray.

TO THE BABY JESUS, LYING IN A MANGER

The Word, You, became flesh.You became flesh and bone,blood and guts,blood that could spill – and would spill,guts that would cramp with pain and grief – your own, and others’ , everyone’s pain and grief…

You became small, fragile,(“immensity cloistered in a virgin’s womb” Milton)You became breakableGod who is indomitable, undying, unbound…radiant! Glorious! Majestic! Light! here, all that majesty is all contained, compacted, contracted into…You.

You “arrived in [creature] form so as not to scorch us with your glory,” says the poet (Mary Karr,” Descending Theology: Nativity”)

You arrived, with feet, and hands, and eyes,crying – “you came crying, as we all do…” (Karr)

And you chose such a difficult way to come and go through the world! You did not make it easy for yourself – you entrusted yourself to people without any power who were scorned by those with power…

You descended to people without money or any wealth that could ease your way.

It was a hard coming You chose.

Was there no other way?What risk you took to enter a world reckless with sin, with evil impulses scorching the land! You may not have wanted to scorch us with your glory,but surely you knew that we would scorch you with our sin?

Why bother?

What did God want us to see in You that we could not see before you came?

We had seen God’s radiance and glory,God had shown us that on Mt Sinai --we had seen God’s greatness and mighty power ;who could not tremble when the Red Sea parted and Pharoah’s armies sank beneath the waves?

But what we could not see were the scars,and we could not hear the weeping,we could not know the Father’s heart

nor see the depths of love that dwells there.

Until You came.In the darkness, in poverty, in the coldand went forth to walk among us.

You did not have to – but then, perhaps you did, because you love,You are Love,and love suffers with, and for, the ones it loves.

Is that what you wanted to make visible, that God’s love is so deep and wide it will even “share poverty, suffering, and death with human beings?”“which can only mean that such things are now full of dignity and meaning…” (Marilyn Robinson, Lila, p. 77) because you share them, you have entered them…(“though it taxes my poor heart at times to believe this, and to act as if it were true is to be ridiculous…”) (Robinson, adapted)

but if you had not come,if you had not taken on flesh that scarred and eyes that wept,

if you had remained in the form of God, a stranger to poverty and struggle, never infiltrating the darkness through a manger on the margins,if you had not chosen the downward, difficult way,then what dignity or meaning could possibly be found in our misery?What word could we speak to the one who has faced the trials that life hurls at mortals or suffered the horrors that humans inflict upon one another ?

If Mary had not given birth to her firstborn son and laid You in a manger, thus laying bare the Father’s heart,what hope would we see for the streams of Marys and Josephs with babies now fleeing across the globe,what promise for the one huddled in a cold corner,what dignity for the patient muttering on a locked hospital unit; what redemption could be sought by the one pacing the prison cell,what meaning for the one suddenly, shockingly, standing by the grave? No, I could not bear that,I could not bear a world You had not entered,a life You had not dignified and lightened by sharing it,an existence you had not infused with meaning and hope by becoming part of it –

Though it may be ridiculous to act as if this were absolutely true, it is also ridiculous to try to live and act as if it were not true. I see no other way for the soul to survive in this dark world of sin than holding fast to the truth that in You, dear babe,the eternal Word became flesh, full of grace and truth,and from You we receive grace upon grace…No one has ever seen God,but You, You who are close to the Father’s heart,You make Him known.

You are the Way,You show us the Truth, You make possible the Life that is worth living.

Welcome, You.

We are so very grateful You have come. Amen.