This month, instead of biking the streets and trails of Vancouver’s temperate rain forest, I’ve been walking the paths and neighborhoods of Dartmouth and Hubley. Here in Canada’s east, I’ve traded Vancouver’s grey skies and rain for bright sun and snow and wind that bites my cheeks. Here, streams and paths are scattered with ice-rimmed granite rocks, and, instead of ancient trees hosting moss on their trunks and ferns in the clefts of their branches, the trees host lichens of various sorts, including the old man’s beard which I can’t see without remembering turning around some seventeen years ago on a walk with Dad to see him sporting new facial hair.
As I’ve been settling into a new place with different paths to explore, a greater variety of meals (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and new neighbors, I’ve been pondering the arrival of God in human skin. I’ve only moved from one side of the country to the other. The language and currency and basic cultural norms are pretty much the same (aside from talking with strangers met on the paths, which is much more common here in the east). I’ve returned to the same home and church and family in which I grew up. My body is unchanged.
But Jesus came out of eternity into time, out of perfect beauty and love into a world where the sacrificial hospitality of Mary and Joseph existed alongside the murderous jealousy of Herod.
He didn’t even have a body before his arrival among us. He had never crawled wearily into bed, gotten a splinter, or felt his nervous system calm with the embrace of a loved one. The One who first conceived and shaped human life was about to begin navigating both the delight and the awkwardness of flesh from the inside: his first gasping breath, the comfort of a full tummy, the colicky pain of a gas bubble.
Like every other human baby, Jesus experienced the shock of being thrust out of his warm, watery womb-world into this sharp, cold one – trading cozy darkness for startling light, gentle rocking and the ever-present soothing of his mother’s heartbeat for separateness. When he left his mother’s hospitable womb, those early sensations would have been all that he knew: his mother’s voice, her scent, a blurry glimpse of her face. The rustle of animals nearby.
But for Jesus, unlike other babies entering this world, there’s another layer I wonder about.
What was it like for this One who had always existed in the secure bond of the Trinity to ache with the distress of separation, to need comfort and cuddles and the soothing presence of his mother? To need at all — he who had never needed anything before, now dependent on the compassion of his own creatures for his survival. How can we reclaim the astonishment this mystery invites?
Perhaps our only hope is to ask this One who himself entered our world to touch our hearts with the wonder of this mystery: He in whom and through whom everything was created submitting to being formed as a human, cell by multiplying cell, from a woman’s egg, hovered over by the Holy Spirit. Almighty God wailing as his newborn gut adjusted to life outside the womb. The King of angels waking multiple times in the night with an empty tummy, a full diaper, or simply having to learn those first lessons of life in this world outside the womb, that dark hours are meant for sleeping and light for waking.
What was it like for this God-baby to eventually learn the satisfaction of taking first steps, the surprise of bumping back down onto his bottom? The frustration of mouthing words that no one could at first understand, then the delight of being able to make his wants known?
Oh, Jesus, most wondrous of all mysteries, awaken our hearts to marvel more deeply this Christmas at the incomprehensibility of who you are, at your startling humility, your desire, in love, to become one of us.
Glimpsing even the smallest bit of this mystery, we kneel before you with the shepherds and wise men.
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First image by Tadeusz Zachwieja on Unsplash. Others by Carolyn Watts.
Thank you for your wisdom, directing my thoughts to how would the baby like all babies experience birth. I don’t think any of us human remember being transitioned from inside the womb to outside. I think if there can be remembrance of that momentous occasion Jesus would remember it. But perhaps only after his resurrection. So many new thoughts for me.
Thanks, Sue. So much to ask Jesus about when we get to talk with him face to face! May you have a blessed Christmas, filled with the awareness of the presence of Jesus.
Your writing leaves me in very contemplative thought of how God gives of himself to be entrusted into the hands of Mary and Joseph. How he gives us his Son, which so much of the world, did not even know He had entered. As we celebrate Jesus birth, I rejoice in knowing that the world is one year closer to experiencing the return of Jesus and living in eternal time with Him. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts in your blog. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you as well, Sharon. And Amen to being one year closer to the return of Jesus!
Thank you, Carolyn
Your thoughts have turned my thoughts in a new direction…
I’m glad, Sandra. Merry Christmas!
Thank you for sharing these precious thoughts! Thinking of you, far away, with your dear family and familiar places! God bless you as you enjoy the comfort of family and the comfort of His Presence.
Thank you, Jan. May your Christmas also be filled with the comfort of Jesus’ presence!
Beautiful and insightful, Carolyn. Thank you, and may you and your family have a blessed Christmas celebration.
Thank you, Connie. May you also have a blessed Christmas!
Hi Carolyn,
I was so glad to receive your post and ponder. You bless me. May you have a beautiful Christmas there in the east
Thank you, Susan. Many blessings on you in this new year!