A Surprise PackageHe is so small. Tiny fingers and toes, eyelashes like feathers…nursing at a woman’s breast… Come now. This is no way for a God to act. This is no way for a God to present Itself.
“…the image of the invisible God…” This helpless infant images the Triune Mystery? Some might say that’s quite a stretch. But let’s take a closer look at this small package. Let’s unwrap the Gift. There is a Mystery hidden in this Child, just as there is a mystery hidden in each newborn. What shall this Child be?
The hiddenness of God has a name in Christian theological language. From earliest days this hidden Godhead is called “Father.” (Mother would do just as well, except the patriarchy of the times and the popularity of goddess worship in the middle east made a feminine reference unlikely.) If the Christ is the image of the invisible God, then the One who has taken on our DNA will reveal this loving Source, quite at home in the boundaries of human limitation. This hiddenness now manifest in an unspeakable humbleness driven to join us in our humanness.
But this Triune Mystery does not stay all locked up in Itself. It breathes Itself out in an Expression that includes the entire cosmos. This Word delights crafting all manner of shapes and forms, pulsating with life and beauty. “In the beginning was the Word…and all that came to be came to be in the Word…” So, most divine Self-Expression, did you delight in weaving yourself flesh from the virgin’s womb? One with your dear Abba did you delight in your nine month confinement? Are you delighted as you are held in a woman’s arms and learn to recognize the contours of her face?
What drove you to this madness? Why do you cloak your majesty in littleness? Have you now fear of being dethroned from your majesty? What Divine Breath brooded over Mary’s humanness to produce this infant beauty? Spirit of the Heart of God, is this what you are about with our human stuff? Is this how you reveal Yourself? Is this how you want the Godhead to be known? Hiddeness fired by a mad Love that crafts an Expression of God in the vulnerable beauty of an infant?
This is shocking. Allowed its way, it would undo all our carefully crafted images of the Triune God, so doctinally lofty. And yet this is how you present Yourself to us in this season. A surprise package indeed.
