Our son made a tempestuous arrival into the world. An emergency c-section at the end of hard labor would have been climactic enough. But, somewhere along the way, Ethan had contracted a life-threatening virus. My new-born was rapidly whisked to a neo-natal intensive care unit an hour away…and I finally caught up with him four days later.
Not the easiest start. But this little guy was a snuggler, and when that boy, wires, tubes and all, was finally in my arms, he pressed his little body against my neck as though he wanted to crawl inside it. My heart was captured. I had been wooed by a baby.
***
For years I have listened to a relatively familiar song on classic Christmas albums, and, somewhere below my consciousness, wondered why this song belonged to Christmas.
Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance.
Sing! Oh, my love, oh, my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.
But this year I paused to listen to the lyrics. The next line reads, “Then was I born of virgin pure…” And my heart finally caught on. It’s Jesus calling us to his dance! The carol was mostly likely written in the 15th century when the movement of planets was still called “the music of the spheres,” and everything was connected to everything else, and all of life was a dance.
This Christmas I simultaneously hear a faint echo of that earlier understanding, even as I ponder the current rich conversation occurring on many levels about life within the Trinity—a mutuality of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so full that it spilled forth to call back a broken creation into the dance of divine love.
This Christmas we are beckoned to the regal dance of the most excellent of men with grace pouring forth from his lips (Ps. 45:2). We are enticed to the joyful dance of the Lord our God who “rejoices over us with gladness” (Zeph3:17). We are called to join our strong partner who “is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24). Hope against hope, in spite of all we see before us, this baby invites us, his true love, to his dance.
Jesus: the baby who came to draw the whole world to himself. Oh come, let us adore him.
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This is beautiful! I too have been pondering, "Why a baby?" this Christmas. God could have come as an adult, and we would be no worse off, right? It would still be incarnation, God with us.
ReplyDeleteI know theologians can come up with all sorts of tangled reasoning as to why a baby, but I think it's really very simple: babies are endearing; they simply beg to be loved by their very vulnerability. And our God is all about love and relationship--with us!
Jocelyn and I sang a duet at church this week called,"Welcome to our World." We sang about the "tender brow prepared for thorn" and the heart beating with blood that would be spilled for us and how this Little One will rob us of our sin.
Christmas Blessings, Deborah
"Welcome to our World" is a very sensitive song--I love it, too. The Father appears to have been both patient, and determined that his son would miss nothing of our human experience. I do love the mystery that Jesus, too, knew joy in some way as he came--that "the joy set before him" years later was also with him at the beginning. Ah, what an incredible story is his...and ours in him!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deborah. Blessing to you all as well.