One of Us

This past Christmas season, like every preceding Christmas season I can remember, the television announcers gushed that we mustn’t miss “this very special Christmas episode” of some lame sitcom or hospital show. As usual, there were any number of films and telecasts reflect on “the true meaning of Christmas,” including the 4 billionth broadcast of It’s a Wonderful Life. Based on popular programming, one might conclude the “true meaning of Christmas,” being nice to grumpy people, remembering that we’re all significant in our own unique way, or unexpected revelations about the magical contracts that govern Santa Claus.

Not that I’m against being nice to grumpy people, having a healthy self image, or even creatively rethinking our view of Santa Claus. And I’d hate to admit how often I’ve seen It’s a Wonderful Life. But honestly! Christmas is quite a bit more than a holiday version of a Sesame Street.

But to aim for unexpected revelations about Santa Claus is to aim too low. Much too low. Christmas is about unexpected revelations, certainly. Christmas is about the most unexpected revelation of all. For no one, simply no one, was ready for the unexpected revelation that is the very heart and center of Christmas.

Nor is Christmas even entirely about the birth of Messiah. As wonderful and exciting as that Good News was, and as difficult as it was for many to believe Messiah had been born at last, that Good News revelation was not unexpected. There were many who were expecting the coming of Messiah at any time. Many were waiting for Messiah’s birth, and we saw how quickly Anna and Simeon recognized him when Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple.

The unexpected revelation of Christmas is much larger, much grander, much wilder, and much more unexpected than even the birth of Messiah. Christmas reveals that God himself just isn’t at all what one might expect.

One might expect the primary truth about God is that God is completely unlike us… transcendent, ethereal, utterly other, totally spiritual, fuzzy.

But the very center of Christianity is that God became one of us. Not just similar to us – but exactly one of us. God was born a human being. Utterly the same as the rest of us. Totally flesh. Concrete and specific. A man with a name, an address, relatives, friends, neighbors, enemies. A man with a birth date. A man with a mother. A man who died. St Paul would write, “for since by a man came death, by a man came also the resurrection.”

From the first centuries after the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, through recent books and editions of news magazines, people struggle to understand exactly who Jesus was. But the unexpected revelation of Christmas is that in Jesus, we discover who God is. The overwhelming and relentless conclusion of Christianity was and still is this: God just isn’t what one might expect. God is one of us. And that changes everything and everyone.

May the Peace of the Lord be with you!