Born is God the Child Holding Heavens in Its Eyes

Born is God the Child Holding Heavens in Its Eyes

advent four / the longest night

This weekend I preached at a wonderful congregation. In preparation, I revisited some old material and rearranged/edited it for the context of this place on the occasion of the longest night and Advent 4. God the Child is one of my favorite images. As is often the case, Rubem Alves was the first to help me really focus on what it means for God to be a Child (in this book), something we emphasize in narrative and image (if not explicitly in words) especially at Advent and Christmastime. I hope it adds some meaning to your season. 

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. 

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived

together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  

Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her

to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  

But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a

dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary

as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy

Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he

will save his people from their sins.”  

All this took place to fulfill what

had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall

name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” 

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;

and he named him Jesus.

***

It’s Christmas 1999. 

20 Years ago. 

One week until: 

Y. 

2. 

K. 

People are filling their bathtubs with drinking water. 

Stores are sold out of day to day supplies. 

Back-up generators fill the back of many-a pick-up truck. 

And 107.7FM—Christian radio in Milwaukee—is GOING WILD with stories both about “The REAL Christmas,” 

as well as prophecies about the End Of It All. 

Bunkers are built. 

Fuel. Ropes. Matches. 

Canned goods.

Hard drives are backed up on CD-ROMS, 

slipped into little translucent sleeves. 

And the faithful, the “saved,” the believers—those “truly” part of the Christian tribe—they all head for the hills. 

Closer to heaven. 

Fenced off from the world. 

Counting down to the new year. 

Counting down to the apocalypse. 

“And only the righteous! will survive.” The radio crackled.  

“When the King returns in all His Glory!” 

“When the world arrives at consummation.”

“A new heavens and a new earth.” 

“The moon will turn to blood.” 

And the cosmos collapse.

This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

This is but the beginning. 

Before Christ’s triumphant return. 

On a horse of white. 

With a sword of steal.

A conquering cavalcade of saving glory. 

Sheep and goats. 

Lights beaming. 

The blood of the wicked flowing like a river from the Mount of Zion. 

What joy!!!

What Advent Hope that Christmas 

would be fulfilled in only a few days!

+++

Christmas was good. 

New years eve we went to bed early I think. 

And when we woke up, 

those songs on Napster we had begun to download were completed after all.  

The stoplights remained in tact. 

And everyone who had threatened us with hell that year was not actually raptured. 

They were still stuck here with us.

No white horses. 

No bloody streams.

Nobody saved from the day to day up into the sky.  

We just shared coffee at the cafe, instead.

We said Happy New Year! 

And we went about our days. 

Y.

2.

K.

Began just like any other day. 

+++

Seven months later. 

(August of Y2K). 

I’m working at a summer camp. 

Pine Lake Lutheran Camp in sunshiny Waupaca, Wisconsin. 

It is AWESOME. 

Summer is in full swing. 

My campers are amazing. 

And I’m stoked because I’ve been waiting to work at camp since I was, like, five. 

And finally, tie-dyed shirt, acoustic guitar in hand, I have arrived.  

After lunch, Wednesday, in the office: 

I receive a message.

Laura, my sister, I learn, has just delivered her first ever baby.

My nephew. 

And she’s down in southern Wisconsin. In a city called Waukesha. 

So I pack up my things. 

I get a sub for my kids.

And I leave camp. 

Summer, Y2K. 

And I’m on my way to the hospital. 

To the place where my first ever nephew was said to have been born. 

+++

At that time, I’ve never held a newborn. 

And the idea of holding little baby people genuinely freaks me out. It’s scary.  

So I kind of keep my distance. I stand in the back corner of the room. 

I observe from a space where there is little to no risk of me accidentally causing harm. 

But after a while, they offer Bailey to me. 

They gesture.

And they say, “You wanna hold him?”

No! 

But how do you say no to that? Right? 

And so I take him. I take Bailey. 

I put in my arms sort of like this. Super afraid. 

And I kinda wiggle him around until he feels rested. 

And when it’s clear gravity is now holding him into my arms. 

And he’s not falling or floating away.

(pause/breathe).

I breathe. And I relax.

And then I look down. 

And Bailey. 

My nephew. 

This little lump of life,

he looks back.  

And I look into his eyes. Right? 

And…

Suddenly.  

It’s like the big bang happens right then and there.

There are galaxies, 

eternities. 

All right there in this little kid.

Pure possibility going on forever.

In this sterile hospital, under the buzz of fluorescent lights, 

Right there, right here:  

I was holding a little bundle of living hope, 

and hope was staring right back up at me. 

+++

The Shepherds, the magi—they all spent a lotta time staring up at the sky. 

Lying in the meadows, crossing the wilderness, they were familiar with the infinities of the cosmos. 

They knew the overwhelming awe that could fill one’s body when faced with the majesty of space and the songs of the “heavenly spheres.”  

But these skies, these infinities, these galaxies

that they saw EVERY NIGHT, these melodies that they heard, 

these infinities, 

when the sun appeared each dawn, 

these all became hidden again. 

They were quickly concealed,

they seemed like a dream,

lost to the daytime. 

Whatever majesty had graced them in shadows of the fields, 

when the sun returned, 

the magi returned to endless responsibilities, 

and the shepherds, burdened by sheep, 

returned to being ridiculed and despised by those around them. 

“Aliens!” the not-so-much-better-to-do would yell at the shepherds,

(it was clear that it made them feel better about themselves). 

“Why don’t you get a real job?” and other such things were screamed, most of which we don’t care to repeat in a church. 

Wearing wool, eating lamb, spewing venom—these were the shepherds’ neighbors. 

These were the revelations of the Day Time, the reality of the shepherds’ everyday existence. 

Haters hate us, they realized. 

We, shepherds, are poor. And gross. 

Oppression stings. 

And shepherd from magi from carpenter from everyone else is almost always estranged. 

+++

Whatever the night revealed of eternities, of possibility,

under the sun, for the shepherds, the world-as-it-is remained.

+++

No wonder they traveled by night. 

No wonder they followed not the sunshine, but a star.

+++

It’s true I saw hope in the eyes of my nephew. 

It’s true. It felt like a million of those galaxies known by the magi and the shepherds in the night. 

It’s true, peering down felt like gazing upward from a mountain toward the midnight sky. 

The thing is: 

For Bailey, for my nephew: 

the view wasn’t so different. Right? 

See, 

I saw in this little bundle of flesh all of the things, right? 

But as he grew: 

As he learned sounds,

as he tasted soil,

as he smelled rain and windex and decomposing leaves; 

as he grew: 

not only did I see eternities in him,

but he saw eternities in me, as well.

And not just in me. 

He saw eternities everywhere—in everything, all the time. 

Because he was brand new. 

And because he was new, 

so was the whole world. 

A new heavens and a new earth! 

Paradises to taste! 

Endless places to play. To make him laugh. 

Endless opportunities to be nourished. 

To learn. 

And to grow. 

+++

For a New Child, every creature is the new creation. 

Every direction is an eternity.

All things are made new. 

+++

I don’t think the shepherds saw the cosmos in one another. 

No eternities when they looked in the mirror. 

Their view had been callused by the world around them, by their neighbors, by their pain. 

Distorted from fences and pain. 

In the daylight, 

under the sun, it seems, they saw just what others saw: 

“I, shepherd, am dirty,” they learned to repeat. 

“I, shepherd, am despicable.” 

“Unclean, I need to be kept at bay.”

Crud on my trousers. 

Dirt in my beard. 

Pull your kid to the side as I pass you by. 

Sad and callused, the shepherds saw not eternities, but only the world as it is, the world (as they were taught) as it had to be. 

“Dreams are meant for the shadows,” they repeated.  

“Hope is naive.”

“And eternity is really, really, really far away.” 

This was the the truth of the world as it is, revealed to them in the light and heat of the day.

+++ 

But the shepherds…

still had the night.  

The shepherds, they lay, keeping watch, looking up!

And so beneath the fleeting infinities, peering upward, it was to the shepherds that the angels arrived. 

A child! They proclaimed. 

God the Body. 

God is with us. Immanuel! 

Born is God the Child who holds the heavens in his eyes. 

Born is a savior full of grace and truth. 

And so they went. 

With haste. 

Toward Bethlehem. 

+++

That morning, the day began as it always had:  

The sun revealed that the world-as-it-is remained. 

The righteous had coffee with the wicked. 

The haters continued to hate. 

Oppression kept its sting. 

And shepherd from magi from carpenter from everybody else 

remained estranged.

No one was raptured. 

No one from pain was saved. 

But when the sun retreated, 

and eternities returned,  

The shepherds and the magi and the carpenter arrived. 

There in bodies moved by hope, they stood together. 

There in love for a Child-God, full of hope and life. Stricken with awe and wonder, they rejoiced, for God the Child truly had been born. 

+++

The messiah arrives. 

No white horses. 

No rivers of blood. 

Only the bodies of those hoping against hope from their own places of pain. 

Looking for eternities in a Child’s eyes. 

And there they peer down at the child, poor, shivering.

And suddenly,

God the Child peers back. 

And God the Child smiles because here, in each gathered, 

because here, in each gathered, 

Here, God the Child sees something we have all forgotten in the daylight. 

Here, God the Child sees a new creation. New life!

Here, God the Child sees infinite possibilities in every direction. 

God the Child sees galaxies, eternities in your eyes.

In 2017. In Y2K. 

+++

May grace help us to see what the Christchild sees in us,

and to trust the Christmas Truth:

The finite holds the infinite. 

And God, eternal, dwells in you.

Amen.