GOD’S CHRISTMAS CARD: I SEE YOU [M, 12-14-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

GOD’S CHRISTMAS CARD: I SEE YOU   [M, 12-14-20]

 

As I walked this morning, I waved to a woman who was walking on the other side of the street. I do not know her. Never saw her before. But I felt a smile starting when she waved back. She saw me!

That’s unusual these days, actually to see and be seen by a real human being, one who is not in a little Zoom box. It’s like getting a Christmas card.

That’s what Christmas is, I think, an exchange of greetings. God is saying to us, in Christ, the little Jesus baby born in Bethlehem, a real person in a real time, “I see you.”

As we celebrate Christmas, we are replying to God, “I see you, too.”

Our cards to God--our attempts to say, “I see you, too”-- are sort of jumbled--sleigh bells roasting on a rubber cigar, Jack Daniels dripping from your nose—because we don’t really know how to say to God, “I see you.” In fact, we can’t see God at all, so shrouded in mystery, so far beyond the understanding of these brains. It’s easier to act like Christmas is about a reindeer with a red nose, or bells that jingle, or a jolly fat man who brings us toys.

Religion in general is an acknowledgement that we don’t understand, humility in our finiteness as we face the infinite. Christian faith is that God, understanding our lack of understanding, sends to us someone we can understand, someone like us, brought into human form the same way we are, taken out of human form in the same way we are--Jesus, called the Christ, because Christ is the Word of God, the language of God, the communication of God, God saying, “I see you.”

Incarnation, God in human form, isn’t just about Jesus. Incarnation is about God in every human. But Jesus is the World Series of incarnation. The World Series is the essence of baseball, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any other baseball. No, there is Little League and minor leagues and Uncle Johnny hitting fly balls to me in our pasture as a kid. But to see what baseball is in its most perfect form, we look to the World Series. To see what humanity is in its most perfect form, we look to Christ.

So, this Christmas, it’s okay just to give God a wave, and say, “Thanks for seeing me. I see you, too.”

John Robert McFarland