Honestly, this isn’t really a Truth Tuesday post…just a little quote I heard a few years back that continues to rattle my core being.

I first listened to this On Being podcast a few years ago as I was delivering the mail during the Christmas season (the USPS delivers far more gifts than Santa does – so you should start leaving gifts for your letter carrier). The following quote concerns Christmas and Jesus, and I still don’t know what to do with it; I’m not entirely sure what it means to me, but I continue to wrestle with it:

 

“It’s a nice, pretty story about two nice, good looking people, usually white…you know, who had a pretty baby in a manger. But in a sense, it’s a terrifying story. In terms of what they had to undergo. And it’s also, I have to say, it is a shocking story. It’s not just a baby. It is God being born in human form. And it’s just as shocking as the resurrection. And I think we’ve tamed it. And in a sense it doesn’t demand our belief. We can just kind of look on it, and say, well, that’s cute.

But if you say to people do you believe that that is God incarnate in that stable. What does that mean for you, that God comes to us as the most helpless being that you could imagine? You know, sort of crying, and wetting his pants, and needing to be nursed. What does that say to us about who God is for us, and how God is for us, and how much God loved us to do that. And that, I think is an entirely different story than, you know, the — the kind of Christmas-cardy stuff that we see.”

My friends, may your holidays be filled with shock, with wonder, with helplessness, with a desire to share with others about your faith – whatever that may be. And may we all come to understand the beauty and reality of Christ’s birth.

much love. sheth.