Christmas: The Insurrection of God
“But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.” John 1:12-13 NEW AMERICAN BIBLE
Humans like to adorn themselves with the majesty and pageantry of greed. Politicians speak from podiums, academics line their offices with framed parchments, athletes and entertainments hawk merchandise they often fail to use. Museums proudly display oil paintings of Napoleon on horseback and nightmares envision the “latest” fuehrer to champion in front of ecstatic crowds of wide-eyed believers. Indian prince Siddhartha wandered his kingdom of wealth before he became “the Buddha” and Muhammad cast away his mere “five camels, a flock of goats, a house, and a slave” in order to take Arabia by sword. Only God came as a homeless infant, born in a manger unfit for animals.
No human could conceive of such a conception, but God chose to come into his earthly world unhindered by human expectations. Had he arrived with all the power and glory he is capable of rendering unto our minuscule existence, his human subjects would have run and cowered behind every rock and tree they could find. Instead, he chose, in his infinite wisdom, to arrive amongst his flock in the most unthreatening way imaginable – as an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. Only absolute evil remains threatened by a baby.
Herod the Great valued his kingdom more than his God, so he had the Holy Innocents butchered by the dozens if not the hundreds. Their sole crime being that they were near enough to Christ’s age that Herod could not afford their existence. To survive, Christ had to trust that Mary and Joseph would spirit him away into Egypt to await the death of ‘the Great’ – a human so vile that he could not let a mere child live. And what of today? How many tens of millions of infants are destroyed through abortion simply because their parents’ “kingdom” cannot afford these children? How many people deny the very existence of Christ because “how can God have a mother?” As soon as we question the infinite power of God, we elevate ourselves onto the pantheon of human sacrifice. That is, our souls die because we cannot fathom that God can have whatever God desires, including a human body and mother.
Yet, God so loved the world that he did not question our ability to accept whether he could create his own mother if he so chose. He of infinite power did not want to terrify us into belief, as the “Allah” of Islam seems so destined to do. His first gift unto the human world was to grant us free will, an ability to close our hearts and minds to him who created us and everything that we can comprehend – and much that we cannot. God’s magnificent Kingdom remains so hospitable that he delivered the key to us personally, as an infant who even worried his parents for three whole days as he wandered away. All that we need to do to unlock the entrance to his mansion is simply to believe in him and heed his words and deeds.
Distancing ourselves from Christ is but a distraction. We can manufacture other deities, even involving ourselves if we so choose. We can glorify our actors and athletes, our politicians and our prophets, our ministers and our militants, and still not match the unblemished life of Jesus. In all of the Gospels, there remains not one instance of Christ endangering his detractors or punishing those who did not believe in him. In fact, his greatest ‘threat’ to the Establishment was to forgive everyone including those who nailed him to a cross and pierced his side with a lance all while mocking him and casting dice for his clothes.
For those of us who cannot wait in line at the register or endure being patted down at the airport, Christ’s example shines forth as the perfect example to emulate. He bore a crown of thorns, long needles of which undoubtedly pierced his skull so that we may not experience an infinitely greater inconvenience than waiting for a cashier to ring up an elderly customer who cannot find her money quickly enough for our tastes. He endured skin-shredding lashes so that our infinite punishment would not exceed that of enduring a mere earthly existence amongst people we did not choose to associate with. He endured forty days of fasting so that he would understand our comparatively little hunger. He even permitted his closest friend to deny him three times and another to betray him to death for profit so that our complaints of infidelity and debt would pale in comparison.
Today, thousands of atheists fear the mere sight of a Christmas tree and millions of Muslims and others fear the thought that God could be so powerful as to visit every one of us in person. Like the farmer who wished that he could change into a bird in order to lead a flock of sparrows into the warmth of his barn during a blizzard, God understood that he had to persuade – not force – us into following him into the protective warmth of His Kingdom. Neither a politician wearing tailored suits nor a “prophet” bearing armor and a sword could walk on water or change that water into wine. Nevertheless, Christ did. No entertainer or athlete could calm a storm or give sight to the blind. Nevertheless, Christ did. Buddha, Mao, and Muhammad inspired billions, but they could not raise the dead. Yet Christ did. And to think that he loved us so very much that his greatest gift was to come to us as a mere child, thrust into an inhumane human world, without home or friend, and ultimately suffer an unimaginably horrible death for our sins just so that we could have eternal life – if we so choose to believe in him. As they say, only a child could conceive of such a story…
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE BE WITH YOU ALL!
R.J. Godlewski
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