Bellybuttons and the Incarnation

Many years ago, I noticed one of our kids (an infant/toddler at the time) playing with his bellybutton, and I had a bit of an odd thought. Everyone, it occurred to me, has a bellybutton; the greatest and the lowliest, the most beautiful and intelligent, and the least. And what does it mean? That each of us was borne in his mother’s womb, at the most basic, earthy level, and you can take it from there. Each of us was an infant with shitty diapers; each of us was a snot-nosed kid, and so on. . . If we’re fortunate, each of us will grow old and wrinkled and gray-haired. Funny to think about supermodels with snotty noses; or gray hair and wrinkles, for that matter. Funny to think of Einstein with shitty diapers, but it’s true – every human being who ever lived had a bellybutton – was born of a woman. Human life has a few constant parameters, not all of them glorious; and bellybuttons are one of them.

Given the season, it’s real appropriate to observe that even God Himself was born of a woman. As sloppy and messy as human life can be, it wasn’t too gross a thing for God to be born of a woman and share human life with us. Peter Kreeft has said that the Incarnation means that God stepped in our manure (because Peter Kreeft is not quite so rude-and-crude as I am).

And in the previous context, the Incarnation comes to seem all the more amazing. Supermodels and Einstein are funny to think about, but. . . God Himself? A little baby. . . shitty diapers and snotty nose. . . God?! And that, at the most fundamental level, is the wonder of it. . .

“For we do not have a Redeemer who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness, but one who has experienced life as we have. . .” (Hebrews 4:15, roughly; call it the DJV – Desmond Jones Version)

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For the past few years, to mark the seasons of Advent/Christmas, our community has put on a show (shamelessly stolen from something someone heard on PBS) called, ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ – nine Christmas-themed Scripture readings, each one paired with a corresponding Christmas carol. It’s really a pretty cool idea.

This year, our family (‘The von Jones Family Singers’) sang What Child Is This?, to go along with Luke 2:1-7 on ‘The Birth of Christ’.

I have always been struck by the second chorus of this song: “Nails, spear, shall peirce Him through, the cross be borne for me, for you”, and the idea it expresses that, whatever else might be the case, the Incarnation is ultimately directed toward the Cross.

The Word became flesh, not merely to show us a human life lived as it was meant to be lived, but, ultimately, for the Perfect Sacrifice of ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’. So, even amidst the joy of the Incarnation – the angelic choirs, the Child in the manger, and all that – there is the sorrow and suffering of the Cross. The two are not separable. The Cross – the Sacrificial Atonement – is the larger part of the significance of the Incarnation. And without the Cross and Resurrection, there is no Christianity.

And, one wonders about Mary. At what point was she aware that Jesus, the Incarnate Word to whom she gave humanity, the child of her own womb, was also the Sacrifice Lamb? When did the sorrow temper her joy? When did she realize that “the Son of Man must lay down His life as a ransom for many”? Was it revealed to her before she said her momentous “Yes” to God? If so, all the more amazing that she said “Yes” even still. And even if not, isn’t it just Human in some archetypal way – her own joy at giving birth to the Incarnate Word is not untempered by the sorrow of the Cross? That’s just the way it is for us humans, and Mary is nothing if not human. . .

Holy Family

This past Sunday was the Feast of the Holy Family on the Catholic liturgical calendar. In recent years, Molly and I have taken on a certain 'devotion' to the Holy Family. I mean, on a completely basic level, we aspire to holiness for our own family, so there's a certain 'identification' there - here's a holy family; we want our family to be holy; let's pay attention to them. I mean, if you can't take some lessons on family life from Jesus, Mary and Joseph, whatcha gonna do?

Our priest, in his homily Sunday, made what I thought was a very rich, deep point - that, when Christ came to earth in human flesh, he didn't fall out of the sky in armor, riding on a horse; he didn't duck into a nearby phone booth, like Superman; he was born. Born of a woman, and, more to the point for the feast at hand, born into a family. The Incarnation itself happened in the context of a human family. . .

. . . It can seem a bit daunting to measure our family against the standard of Jesus, Mary and Joseph - we aren't saints (and, if you lived with us, you would know just how saintly we really aren't). When I look at our family, the whole concept of 'holy family' and what it might look like applied to us, can become painfully, almost mockingly, abstract. It's hard to see it happening in any kind of 'concrete' way, and sometimes I come close to despair that 'holy' and 'my family' would be utterly oxymoronic if referred to each other.

And yet, even Jesus, Mary and Joseph were fully and completely human, with human lives and human challenges, and their sanctity - their holiness - lies in how they met the challenges they faced, not in the absence of challenges.

And so, for me, might it be that holiness lies not in living so virtuously that nothing bad ever happens to me or my children, but rather in responding virtuously - with goodness and truth - to the things, both good and bad, that do happen to me? And in loving my children when they screw up (like Jesus, who 'while we were still sinners, died for us'). That is holiness on a very earthy, down-and-dirty level. But more and more, it seems to me that that's the holiness I need to pursue.

Lord, have mercy.

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Christmas Poetry Corner

Good Is the Flesh (by Brian Wren)

Good is the flesh that the Word has become
Good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
Good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
Good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body for knowing the world,
Sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
Feeling, perceiving, within and around,
Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become

Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Growing and aging; arousing, impaired
Happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,
Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh.
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
Longing in all, as in Jesus to dwell,
Glad of embracing and tasting and smell,
Good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

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I love this poem because it is so ‘incarnational’. It bespeaks God, in Christ, taking on human flesh – that life in the body is good, and the dignity of human bodily life is only enhanced by God taking it on Himself. Through the Incarnation, God takes our embodied-ness, and fills it with Himself. No longer is He remote from us; His knowledge of us is not merely that of ‘Creator on High’ – He has walked in our world as one of us, hungered and thirsted, stubbed His toe, and ultimately, died.

“Good is the flesh,” indeed. It is not merely that God created human flesh, although it has a dignity that inheres simply to God having made it, and in His image, no less. But even more, the Word became flesh. Emmanuel – God with us.

Awesome.

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