This essay is about Christmas. Really! But where to start?
When we consider how God speaks to us, we realize there are two ways he does so. First, there is the extraordinary: pillars of fire, commandments written on stone, or flashes of lightning. Even the voice of a donkey. Then there is the more pedestrian way, his written Word. But this, too, is wildly varied, and we should be struck by how often he speaks to us in poetry. And when I say poetry, I’m not referring to the rhyming verse we’re familiar with in Western languages, but rather the Eastern variant, which is known as parallelism. Parallelism is simply saying things twice, but in slightly different ways. Whereas our poetry repeats sounds, Hebrew poetry repeats thoughts. No doubt God chose this form of poetry for several reasons, not the least of which is that it translates into all languages without loss. Further, it tends to bring emphasis to what’s being said, and whenever God speaks, emphasis is always justified. As was said by Joseph when interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, “The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon.” But more than being an effective literary device, I believe this repetition tells us something about the author, God himself. For a careful reading of the Bible reveals that not only does God tend to say things twice, he tends to do things twice as well. Nowhere in the Biblical narrative is this more clear than in the case of the first Christmas in Bethlehem of Judea.
On the one hand, nothing is more unique than the birth of Christ. Never before, and never since, has God deigned to enter his creation as a human being, even a baby. I’m fond of saying that those things that are done perfectly need never be repeated, and the birth of Jesus falls into this category. By any measure the Incarnation was a success, and achieved everything the Father intended that it should accomplish. By Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, he has, in the words of Oswald Chambers,
“…switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with God.”
But for all the success of the Incarnation, it still had one major weakness, and that was its particularity. Even after his resurrection, Jesus was limited in his presence to one time, one place, one audience. If the whole of humanity, the whole of creation were to be redeemed, something more needed to be done. What we see, to our eternal joy, is that the Father decreed that upon his ascension, Jesus would be empowered to send his own Spirit forth to all humanity. The plan was that people might do in their individual circumstances what Jesus himself would do were he there. In allowing this, the full ministry of the risen Lord could be multiplied to the extent that any and everybody who was disposed to obey him as Lord would become his ambassador.
The only catch in this arrangement is that it involves the will of the human recipient. Our justification doesn’t require our knowledge, approval or participation in any way, for it was accomplished in full on Good Friday; Jesus is Savior of all. Our reception of God’s Spirit does require our knowledge, approval and participation, however, because it involves our will, our volition. Specifically, it requires that we cede that will to another, even Jesus Christ. Because of this glaring difference, Jesus is not Lord of all. The reason some refuse this interference in their lives is because it is, strictly speaking, unnatural. Adam and Eve were very deliberate in their decision to rebel, and it’s only by a series of moral choices that we undo the rights and habits they established. What are those choices? Essentially, more than doing new things, they are a cessation of things that we’ve always done. First of all, we have to stop running from God. Whereas Adam ran because he was naked and ashamed, Paul says we are now clothed with Christ, and thus clothed we can cry “Abba, Father.” Further, we must stop trying to repay our debt to God as if we ever could. The evil servant, confronted with his astronomical and unpayable debt, simply asked for more time, and he would pay everything. This is temporizing, purely and simply. Finally, to cede our will means that we stop committing Adam’s other sin, and that was deciding for ourselves what is good and evil. If we would be about Jesus’ business, we must submit to him in all ways, not only in terms of what we don’t do, but also what we do.
About now you’re asking, wasn’t this article about Christmas? Trust me, I’m getting there. On the one hand, the birth of Christ was a unique event, never suffering or requiring repetition. On the other hand, it is a metaphor for what we must undergo if we are to be restored to usefulness in God’s kingdom. In the words of Oswald Chambers…
“Just as Our Lord came into human history from outside, so He must come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a ‘Bethlehem’ for the Son of God?”
The Orthodox church makes much of Mary, calling her theotokos, which means God-bearer. Rome venerates her as well, viewing her as slightly more accessible and no less powerful than her son, our Lord Jesus. What Oswald is pointing out is that although nobody can nor need duplicate Mary’s role historically, we must all replicate her role spiritually. We can, no less than she, carry the person of Jesus in our hearts and minds, making him present here and now no less than he was present in Bethlehem.
The only complication with this plan is that it requires our cooperation. Just as Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, May it be to me as you have said,” we have to utter the same words of submission. What unites all Christians is not that we are cleansed from our sins by the death of Christ; all humanity can make that claim. What is peculiar to Christians is that we have renounced that Satanic independence into which we were born, and have agreed that Jesus should not only be our Savior, but our Lord as well.
Here we see God as the ultimate poet, the ultimate lover of his creation. He is not content that things should be to his liking in heaven, he also wants them to be to his honor and glory on earth. So he makes it possible, nay, necessary, that He who dwells in heaven in his primal glory, should also return to earth in the hearts of those who will do his bidding. And this is the key; he visits those who are predisposed to do what he says were he to speak! As Oswald Chamber says,
“If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong.”
If we are willing, then God will do repeatedly and spiritually what he did uniquely and historically in the coming of his Son into the world. Two moral actors, two realms of creation, two Advents; there is a fundamental binary quality to the cosmos. Separate in spatial and temporal dimensions, yet unified in the spiritual. This theme of unity overcoming separation is what characterizes God’s activity, and it is possible only through the repetition of the life Jesus brings. When we encounter repetition in language, it’s poetry. When we encounter it in our lives, it becomes the heart of God. Oswald continues:
“I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth. ‘Ye must be born again.’ This is not a command, it is a foundation fact. The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me.”
