Well, it’s here (almost). That day we’ve been preparing for over the past four weeks. It’s the day when we remember how God took off God’s royal robes and was wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger. God: the infinite, the almighty, the Alpha and Omega became human. In doing so, God redeemed our humanity – not only by saving us from our sin, but also by making holy the fragile, finite, skin-enclosed life we all experience.
You know the story. Or if you don’t, you can find it in Luke 2:1-20. Let us not allow our familiarity with it to cloud our awe over it. It is a truly amazing story. It is grace through and through.
That idea may give you pause. How can there be grace in the physicality of our bodies? Seriously! We burp, we pass gas, we poop (every day if we’re lucky). We get sick. Parts of us break on occasion. While a minority of us are born with a natural physical beauty, most of us are just plain… plain. In one of my previous church appointments, I was standing in the little nook outside the sanctuary waiting with the choir for the moment when we would grandly walk out and begin worship. Someone cracked the door just a bit at which point the man behind me said, “Wow! There sure are a lot of ugly people out there!” He was exaggerating, mind you, but it was a reminder that the human body, while amazing, isn’t always attractive.
And yet God chose to put on this human flesh. Trust me, that little baby in the manger needed his diaper changed. His resting place was stained with the blood and mess of childbirth. Mary didn’t even have any Johnson’s Baby Lotion to give him that wonderful baby smell we all cherish so much. God was a messy, stinky, crying, hungry baby. God was also beautiful, amazing, awesome, and adorable – just like every other baby. God was human! Amazing!!!!
So why, then, do we not cherish our human bodies more? Instead, we are fascinated by superheroes who can leap tall buildings, run at the speed of light, repel bullets with their bare hands, and who never, ever have to go to the bathroom. Many of us are ashamed of our bodies. Many of us don’t take very good care of our bodies. Others of us are obsessed with molding our bodies into some “ideal” form. What we should be doing is respecting our bodies.
We don’t know what God looked like in human form. Nobody took a photo or made a painting of Jesus. What we do know is that he was in many ways just a normal guy. Yes, he performed some wonderful miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit working through him, but he also told us so can we. What he didn’t do was leap tall buildings, run super fast, or stop bullets. As a matter of fact, he died a painful death on the cross. If God honored human flesh that much, then so should we.
I hope you will take some time to truly appreciate the gift of your human body – the way it looks, the way it functions, and the things it enables you to do. Take time during this season when we celebrate the incarnation of God to thank God for the body God gave you. God loves it. So should you.
Rev. Joyce Day
If you would like to view past editions of Grace for the Journey, follow this link: https://sounddistrictnc.org/category/grace-for-the-journey/