Best Trinitarian Image: Yourself?
Monday, January 22nd, 2007A Surprise Package
He 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.