Lewis, our firstborn, was 13 months old when we traveled to Nashville for the Conference’s big Youth Event: Warmth in Winter.  On Saturday night Lewis’s temperature suddenly spiked and we rushed to the emergency room.  With medicine, an IV, and reassurance we were  admitted to Vanderbilt Children’s. The in-room crib looked like it could coral a gorilla with high steel bars and room for a 12 year old. Connie and I pulled up chairs, reached through the bars, watched monitors, waited and prayed. 

At some point the coffee and adrenaline wore off  and slumped back into my chair.  Suddenly, I sat straight up, something felt wrong. No monitors were blinking or  alarms sounding. Lewis was gently sleeping.  But then I noticed Connie silently climbing over the high crib rails and gently nesting around Lewis inside the crib.  With her dexterity and strength, I did not worry about Connie, a former gymnast, falling on Lewis and the crib appeared indestructible. Still, I sat in the dark silence wondering, “why not open the crib, why did take a chance and climb into the crib?”  Free marriage tip: if it is 3 AM on the children’s wing, resist any urge to ask your partner “What on earth are you doing?”  I pretended to be asleep, and then silently took in the scene of Connie peacefully what felt like our whole world inside that steel crib. In the light of a better day, Connie volunteered “I did not want to wake Lewis up and I just had to be with him, so I just climbed over the rails”  Love moves us to compassion.    

Bathed in heaven’s glory, tonight, the angels sing, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Christ, the Lord… you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”   Why did the Lord, what does it mean that God became a baby laying a feedbox? 

Father Richard Rohr calls Christmas “the big leap”. God leaps from Heaven “up there”  to earth “down here”.  God leaves the endless hallelujahs for human laughter and tears.   

God had to be with us.  This is no surprise as Isaiah 54 proclaims  “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you”.  

If you enter the word “compassion” into your Bible app you will see Jesus being “moved with compassion” whenever he looks at a crowd.  God comes and dwells with us not an angry judge measuring our flaws, but as an indulgent parent seeing where we are hurting, harassed, hungry, hardhearted, needing healthcare, thirsty, oppressed, misguided, prodigal, unwelcomed, unwelcoming, unforgiven, unforgiving, excluded, excluding, judged, judgy, at war and warring. Matthew 9, 14, 15,& 20 and  Luke 7,10,15,& 19) God sees humanity through a lens of empathy, compassion and love.  Even at our worst, false arrest, police brutality, or unjust convictions, Jesus spoke compassion: “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23)  God does not look away from our humanity, God enters unto it. God comes to save us from our worst selves, but not to remove us from our humanity. 

Father Richard Rohr describes how our worship and practice so often focuses on ascending  “up to heaven”, when Jesus has already come “down”  here to dwell with us.  Jesus came to build a kin-dom on earth. Paul calls our bodies Temples of the Holy Spirit! (1 Corinthians 6) Father Rohr says “in Christ, God is forever overcoming the gap between human and divine, the Christian path becomes less about climbing and performance, and more about descending, letting go, and unlearning.  Knowing and loving Jesus is largely about becoming fully human, wounds and all… (The Universal Christ) 

So often we paint a halo around Jesus, an imaginary glowing line that separates the holy from the human. The Good news of great joy for all people”  comes with no protective halo or sanctified bubble. The Incarnation blurs the lines between the holy and the human, God and people, heaven and earth. On Good Friday,  Jesus, once swaddled in rags cries “it is finished” as the curtain separating the people from the Temple’s Holy of Holies is torn open bringing good news to all people.  (Matt 27, Mark 15, Luke 23)  In Romans 8, Paul tells us how “God did not withhold (Jesus) from us”  so that nothing can separate us from the love of God… No: affliction, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, violence, death, this life, angels, supposed kings, the present, the future, no height, no depth, not anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8) God is not just above us, below us and all around us, God is within us. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God. The mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you”  The Incarnation blurs the lines between heaven and earth, the holy and human as God embraces the messiness of our human lives. 

Tonight we remember Jesus’ life: his humble birth, Mary’s songs and Joseph’s dreams. We remember the holy family fleeing as refugees to Egypt. Remember, Jesus’ first miracle of making wine for a wedding. Jesus wept when a good friend died and over his nation’s systemic injustice. Remember Jesus’ humanity In the garden as he told his friends “I am overwhelmed” and I need you to stay close. Jesus called his followers friends, not subjects! Jesus embraced the outcasts, ritually impure and unwelcomed immigrants. Jesus had time for conversations with small children and to hold babies. Jesus ate lavish meals in homes church folks refused to visit. Jesus taught us that God is present every time we fulfill someone’s basic human needs for water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, welcome, inclusion, peacemaking, justice, forgiveness, faith, hope and love? I was hungry and you fed me” (Matthew 25). Paul tells that Jesus breaks down every racial, gender, and economic dividing line.  (Ephesians 2 & Galatians 3) 

Tonight we celebrate God dwelling in our most vulnerable human state. God is one of us, God came as a newborn baby, not even able to regulate God’s  own temperature, God needs to be swaddled in blankets, God needs to be held in Joseph’s arms, God needs to be nourished at Mary’s breast, God needs shelter, God needs to be welcomed, God needs to included, God needs to be loved. Tonight perhaps as we raise our candles and sing with the angels, let us hold our heads a little higher and embrace our humanity because tonight, we remember that God has already embraced our humanity. Amen.