Could we ever need Christmas more than we do this year? The coronavirus has certainly turned things upside down. It’s affected everyone, even if it has done so unevenly. For some, the changes are earth-shattering—a death close to home, months with almost no human contact, a business that took years to build suddenly going under. For others, the changes have been small, but not that small. I hope we have learned just how important human touch is. But even if not, maybe Christmas can teach us.
Most of us have taken some precautions to avoid spreading COVID, which I think is a good thing. Most of the sacrifices (not all) have been worthwhile, but they are sacrifices. Those awkward moments when we aren’t sure whether or not to shake a person’s hand, neighbors not having each other into their homes, families unsure whether to gather for Christmas, looking around and waving at our brothers and sisters during worship (not an ideal sign of the peace the Lord has given us)—these are significant losses. We see how important human contact is early in a person’s life, where babies who aren’t held and touched and cuddled don’t survive. Then I think about the other side of life and my time working as a chaplain in a nursing home. There was a resident there named Barbara who, despite her own scoliosis, would regularly walk to another wing and sit with older men and women that often could speak or hear or see. She would brush their hair and sing to them and rub their shoulders. We were made to embrace each other.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God the Son humbled himself, taking on himself our humanity, our body and soul, skin and bones, lips and eyelashes. He was born of a woman, which means he spent nine months in the complete embrace of Mary’s womb. Today we celebrate that he left behind the warm comfort of Mary’s belly just like he left behind the warm comfort of Heaven. And immediately, he did what he came to do. He gives himself to be held by this young woman, Mary, in turn holding her while he nurses. He lets himself be cradled to sleep in Joseph’s arms, the man kissing Jesus’s forehead while his beard tickles the little boy’s face. God came so that he could embrace us and be embraced by us. That is the life and salvation he offers.
All his life this is what Jesus did. John the Baptists’ hands reluctantly grabbed and plunged him under the water. Jesus placed his hand on a leper that no one else would touch, healing the poor man in the process. Jesus put his arm around his best friend at the Last Supper, even while his companions received Jesus’s flesh and blood in that first Eucharist. The next day Jesus stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross so that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace (cf. BCP, p. 58). Then God rescued that fragile body Christ had taken to himself, resurrecting him on Easter morning. In this we have the promise of our own resurrection, when Jesus with his risen body will hug and caress ours.
We don’t embrace each other these days, at least not like we normally would. Maybe that will kindle your desire for the embrace that Jesus has in store for us, the one that became possible on Christmas Day. That is his plan: to hold us. He will hold us forever. He will hold us and never let us go.
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