On Jesus' Birth

I keep thinking about Jesus being born.  About him entering the world, about him becoming a little baby in a pile of wood called a manger.  I keep thinking about silence.  The silence that dominates the moment just before something larger than life is about to happen.  The quiet before the storm.  The calm air of a room just before words are said that will change a life, change a relationship, change everything from that moment on.

I can imagine the frenzy of the little cave where they stayed that night.  I can see the livestock milling around and mooing and chewing and doing the things that ancient animals would do.  I can see the sweat and I can feel the vibrations of the screams of a young girl giving birth.  I can see the pained look of wonder and sympathy on the face of man who would not be this baby's father.  I can sense the awesome commotion of the whole violent and beautiful display.

 And then I can see it all closing into a vacuum.

In that last second before the baby comes blinking and crying and spitting into the candlelight of his own world, imagine the silence. In that last moment, the mom surrenders her last scream and is breathless.  The father draws down in concentration.  The shepherds are suddenly calm and expectant, waiting in the corner.

All of creation has been crying since The Fall, all of creation in one loud groan has been screaming and calling out her desperate cries for a rescue.  Every mountain and every stream.  Who represents them but some sheep.  Some farm animals.  As the ambassadors of God's creation, their screaming finally comes to a hushed silence as the birth pains of all our hopes and fears throughout all of the years come into this final moment of........ a little baby.

Do you wonder what the angels were doing?  Did they scream and did they shout while the world was silent?  Did Michael and Raphael, nobles of the angelic order, brush the dust off of their long forgotten trumpets and play "Go Tell It On The Mountain"?

I don't think so.  I think they were quiet too.  I think that in their grand wisdom and in their non-human spirits there must have been something like a drum line playing in their minds.  There must have been a silence because they had no idea what it was that was going on.  How could He be the one that has become This?  Did they understand what was going to happen?  Maybe they had the information, but did they feel it?  Did they get the heart and the soul of the mission? I believe that they must have just been quiet, because everything, literally everything, is wrapped up in swaddling clothes, more likely to die of a cold than by crucifixion.

At the end of the day and at the end of all of our conjecture and our air-tight theology, what I have to deal with is: "What does love actually look like?"  What does it look like when someone would risk themselves, not in theory or in a category of finance or dignity or position, but actually would risk themselves for the sake of loving someone else?  What does it look like when the soil and the sea and the stars burning bright in the sky depend upon you?  What does it look like for someone to risk the whole of creation so that he might gain back all of creation forever?  Would I die so that I could fully be reunited with my love?

What this is is someone who was so in love that he risked his life.  He lowered himself beyond the recognition of divinity.  Who would recognize the Son of God in the shape of a child?

We want our salvation now.  We want to be in the fullness of who we want to be.  We want to be in foreign countries.  We want to be in other universities. We want to be anywhere and everywhere but here, in this moment. We want to be on the other side of what promises have been made.

But where we are, whether we like it or not, is in the silent moment just before everything changes.  We are in the hushed still air of Love becoming fully human and having a name, having a face, having a family.

We are in the quiet of what dreams may come tomorrow.  We are in the peace of our lives and hearts that know that the long view of love and hope and joy that was birthed in the ancient night is growing up in our relationships, in our families, in our hopes, in our futures.

Such expectation can only quiet us.  Such expectation draws us silent.  Awed wonder and a baby all in one moment, and everything else is poured out from it.

Tatum.

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