When I was a child I had a long protracted correspondence with Santa Claus.
I would leave milk and cookies out on Christmas Eve and I would leave note where I would inquire about how the reindeer could fly. I wasn’t just curious, I had an ulterior motive, I wanted to fly myself, which is kind of funny because I’ve always been afraid of heights.
It was my plan and my chance to leave behind the increasingly ordinary stuff of life.
So every year I would leave a note, Santa would reply and I would spend the whole year thinking about how to respond back when the next Christmas Eve came along and Santa made his annual visit to our living room.
So eventually, over the years, I teased out the information that the reindeer could fly because they ate magic corn, and no if little boys ate the magic corn they wouldn’t be able to fly, because it only works on reindeer, this was despite my leaving multiple cans of corn for Santa to make magic so that I could try it out myself just to make sure.
My negotiations as to Santa’s trade secrets failed, and we eventually lost track of each other.
Sometimes I treat God like I used to treat Santa Clause, trying to tease out the secrets of life, love, forgiveness, healing, redemption, joy, courage and hope, looking for the secrets to the magic corn that will let me fly. The trade secrets of the divine.
In Luke’s Gospel, the birth of Jesus is a surprising outburst of song, joy and excitement. Suddenly something wonderful and amazing is happening and no one really knows what it means or what to do about it, God is up to something, something unexpected like only God can be unexpected, good news, great joy, for all the people, a birth, a child, a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord.
There is no protracted negotiation; suddenly the whole world is magic.
The earliest Christians did not see Jesus as the solution to our problems, the fix it to our brokenness, the fullness to our emptiness. Jesus was much more than that. Jesus was why creation came to be in the first place, Jesus was the reason why humanity was gathered from the dust and given breath, created in the image of Jesus.
From the beginning, Jesus was the intention of creation, that God could become flesh and walk in the garden. Jesus is much more than the reason for the season, Jesus is simply the reason. His death and resurrection begin creation anew and restores the universe to its intended liveliness, but Christmas was the plan all along, long before our fall from grace.
The casting of Adam and Eve from the garden did not create the necessity for God to be incarnate, what some have called the fortunate fall, rather the incarnation created the necessity of humanity, flesh that would be divine.
Suddenly the whole world is magic.
Something wonderful and unexpected is happening, like only God can be unexpected.
Salvation fills the world, it does not abandon or forsake creation. As the poet Scot Cairns writes, human flesh is “embracing the searing energies of God”.
Fear not indeed!
No wonder heaven and nature and sing and the heavens burst into praise. It’s a miracle that the earth didn’t pop like a balloon! Human flesh embracing the searing energies of God, just down the street, go take a look.
We still don’t really know what to do with this news. Make haste, share the joy, burst out into song, ponder these things in our heart. The ordinary stuff of life isn’t so ordinary after all.
Maybe I’ll start writing Santa again tonight, we’ll ponder the searing energies of God.
Capable Flesh by Scott Cairns
The tender flesh itself
will be found one day
— quite surprisingly —
to be capable of receiving,
and yes, full
capable of embracing
the searing energies of God.
Go figure. Fear not.
For even at its beginning
the humble clay received
God’s art, whereby
one part became the eye,
another the ear, and yet
another this impetuous hand.
Therefore, the flesh
is not to be excluded
from the wisdom and the power
that now and ever animates
all things. His life-giving
agency is made perfect,
we are told, in weakness —
made perfect in the flesh.
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