Christmas Day
Scripture Reading for Today:
The Embodiment of Christmas
by Elle Pyke
As you read this, there's a good chance I'm currently trudging through boot-high snow with my arms weighed down by wrapped packages and Christmas treats. I'll also likely be shivering and complaining about the cold wind lifting the hairs on my neck. I'll be putting on a brave face, mustering up some deep courage, and tilting my head back every so slightly so my salty tears go back from where they came. It will be the first Christmas in my mother’s new home, the Dementia Ward at a long-term care facility.
We will have done our very best to bring her the sights and sounds of Christmas, even though she's long forgotten exactly who we are or exactly where home is. Though her mind and memories have travelled to another time and place, her body still remains. Her lips still curl in the same way when she smiles. She still laughs at my sarcasm when she catches it. Her frail body still offers hard and long hugs.
Gentle reader, I wish there was some saccharine way to dress up my Christmas morning reflection. But this Advent season lives in a different kind of year, one filled with immense loss. I've found myself, unexpectedly, doing what I can only describe as grief walking. Walking myself out of my beloved local faith community. Walking my beloved dog over the rainbow bridge. Walking my beloved mother into the last stages of dementia.
I have walked past the wild edges of sorrow this year, but I've never been alone. The trail this year has been full. So many travelling companions are handling their own losses, disappointments, and disillusionments. None of these walks are ones I have chosen to take. The same is true for those taking their own grief walk. These journeys have been thrust upon us; they are not part of our longings or wishes and were not part of the strategic plans for our lives. The steps we've taken together are slow, grief-stricken, confusing, and sometimes circuitous. It's a wonder what our bodies can accomplish when our hearts are broken.
To my great surprise, grief is an immaculate teacher. Though I'd never go seeking her wisdom on my own, it's been a tender year full of grief's guidance. Walking in deep grief has made space for deep pondering about my body, our bodies, and what it means to be embodied people. What a gift to be given one of the most embodied moments in our sacred scriptures to reflect on. The Christmas incarnation.
Luke's telling of the birth of Jesus is so earthly and fleshly that I am somewhat embarrassed I had previously missed it. Rooted in a historical, social, and spiritual location, God locates himself very particularly in time and space. He makes His fleshly home among us. Sneaking around all of the religious expectations of His day, the manger shouts to us that God can dwell in any old place and in any old body He'd like.
Our bodies, if we have ears to hear, are always whispering prophets. They tell us when things are out of whack. When we're hungry, when we need rest, or when we're no longer safe. For most of my Christian discipleship, I've been trained to be uncomfortable in my skin. To be ashamed of this flesh. To ignore it. To doubt it. To tame it.
Grief has taught me, rather painstakingly, to give reverence to this old fleshly body that carries around my precious suffering soul. To unplug my ears every now and again, attuning myself to its Spirit-filled whispers. Cultivating greater reverence for my body led to greater reverence for the bodies around me. People who look different than me, love differently, believe differently and grieve differently than I do. More than mere ideas of and about God, my body is longing for more of God, housed in the fleshly bodies of my fellow Jesus followers and my neighbors.
The incarnation of this blessed Christmas morning reminds us that "God does not come to us beyond the flesh, but in the flesh, at the hands of a teacher who will not be spiritualized but who goes on trusting the embodied sacraments of bread, wine, water and feet" (Barbara Brown Taylor). Embodiment was enough for the Divine; maybe it should be enough for me. The flesh discounted by the world is exactly the kind of body that Jesus took up residence in. He speaks the language of our flesh. Luke's words to us about the incarnation of a baby remind us that we follow the Word made flesh.
Jesus came to bodies who were well acquainted with grief walks. They knew suffering, silence, and loss. He didn't drop by during the party; he came during their despair. The mystery of Advent, the mystery of this incarnation, is that somehow, hope is still being birthed in the flesh. Jesus is still about the business of restoring and renewing. Jesus is still bottling up these tears.
Why was this year of all years so hard for so many? Beats me. All I know is that God has been here the whole time. In the flesh. Present with myself, with my fellow grief walkers, and present with my mother.
God with me.
God with you.
God with us.
The mystery of the unknown, yet somehow still known in part.
O come, O come, Emmanuel.
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