A Savior Who Emptied Himself into Our Humanity, Bloody Birth Canal and All

Christmas means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because in a world of alienation, violence, and sorrow, Christmas means that there is a God who cared enough about broken, hurting people to come and be in solidarity with us. It means that the concrete is hallowed. It means that simple, ordinary things like mangers, smelly shepherds, annoying government decrees, a baby nursing at his mother’s breast–these concrete, ordinary things are where we find God. God has come near.

That means a lot to me. I find myself often feeling alienated and alone in a broken, hurting world. I try to find hope sometimes through philosophical, abstract ideas. Ever since my teen years, I’ve had a tendency to get lost in my head. But as I swirl around in mental circles, alienating myself more and more, I become more and more distanced from the concrete, the real. But then Jesus comes, completely connected to our visceral human experience, born into this world through the indignity and violent beauty of the birth process. Babies are born covered in blood, in a waxy white substance, often smeared with a bit of their mother’s excrement which escapes in the hard throes of pushing. How far was this God willing to “empty Himself” (Philippians 2)? To sink so very low, smeared red and brown for our sake? To lie dependent on Mary’s breast, the Creator receiving from the created the gift of sustenance and life? How close He was willing to come to us! When we love someone, we will endure any indignity to be near them. And so the Creator felt about His creation. He would endure the mundane and the ugly simply to be with those He loved.

Christmas is special to me because it drags me out of my own head. It reminds me of a love greater and wider than any other I have ever known. It reminds me again of what Jesus means so much to me.

I wish each of you a special Christmas, surrounded by those you love most.

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As the year comes to a close, I want to stop for a moment and thank each and every one of you who took the time to stop by and engage with my writing these past few months. Joining the team at Patheos has been exciting, mentally-stimulating, and deeply purposeful for me and so many of you have helped to make it so. I hope that in the year ahead we will keep having wonderful conversations around the big ideas in life. I will be taking most of the next couple of weeks off from the blog, so expect it to be pretty quiet around here. I look forward to returning fresh and renewed in the New Year for more wonderful interaction together.

Merry Christmas!–Rebecca

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