O Holy Night

It matters that Jesus, the Messiah, came to earth as a baby. I’m grateful to be reminded of that when our Christmas carols sound like lullabies. It helps me to reflect on the unexpected nature of the long-awaited King’s first arrival. After all, it’s significant that Jesus was born - he arrived on earth vulnerable, naked, dependent, humble. The incarnation doesn’t seem like a power move.

But, listen. I wonder if we’ve taken it too far. Silent night, holy night, all is calm…

Have you ever been at a birth? I've birthed two children and have attended the births of about a dozen others. Birth is wild, intense, and not for the faint of heart. It is a reckless and powerful and messy thing. My husband's grandmother was present for the birth of my older son. Her own experiences of giving birth took place during an era when women were sedated prior to active labor, then woke up to a clean, sanitary infant. Nana was in for quite the surprise when she witnessed my son’s arrival earthside. She later remarked, “it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but you did a great job, dear.”

Here’s what matters about Jesus’ incarnation happening through birth: it's the most human experience of all. Nobody is exempt. We are all born. Birth is deeply rooted in this earth: humans and animals are born, while divine beings are not. Jesus crossed that line. He became of this earth. He didn't have to do it that way. He could have flashed onto the scene in a blaze of light with a fully formed adult body. But he was born. And I guarantee you that the scene was neither silent, calm, nor bathed in soft light. It was gritty and messy. Before “the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head,” he burst out in a gush of humanity, drew air into tiny lungs for a first breath, and bellowed with the squall of a newborn. We miss something when we sugarcoat the scene as something “mild.”

Birth is a wild, reckless, messy thing. And it is holy and sacred. Every single time. We have got to unweave our idea of "holy" from the idea of "sanitary." This matters for our theology well beyond our Christology. The one who would wash his people from sin first made his mother unclean for forty days through his arrival. The incarnation is both gloriously sacred and fervently wild.

So let us keep our lullaby Christmas carols, but let us also belt some with awe. If I could invite you into my subtle rebellion against whitewashing the nativity, join me in changing “mild” to “wild” whenever it appears in our songs. There is nothing mild in the incarnation.

Silent night? Not in the least. Holy night? Heavens, yes. The holiest of them all. The night heaven came to earth in the most radical, human way possible, through the unmatched strength of a young woman bringing out a child, when the Word became flesh and tabernacled here on a broken planet. O night divine.