Christmastime: time to wonder about materialism and how God became material to be with us. God as a baby. God as boy. I wonder what Jesus was as a 6-year-old. Was he as full of energy and spunk as my son, bouncing off the walls like a miniature Spiderman? Did Jesus fill Joseph’s days with play, questions and love as my son fills my time? Did Jesus ask his papa, Joseph, to play with him? Did Joseph have bruises from roughhousing?
These questions get to the center of the Gospel more than any questions of morality. For only in awe and wonder can we find God. Those who love the law only miss God who came to be with us in the flesh. For the grace of God goes way beyond simply getting people to behave. Our Heavenly Papa is bigger than simply being a cosmic cop on the speed trap before getting to heaven.
We spend hours, my son and I, wrestling, racing cars, reading books and being with each other. As I pray in the morning, Jesus becomes present to me and the room I am praying in seems to fill with a light and I feel myself rising. Prayer then opens up in wonder and awe at the Master of the Universe comes to spend time with me. I ask about the energy of a 6-year-old and have vision of a young boy hugging his mother, chattering to his father coming home from being a carpenter in the town down the way. The rich Romans are building and the need for carpenters is great. In my times of playing with my son and being with the son of God these moments of love fill me with a deep awe.
Laughing with my son at silly knock-knock jokes make me wonder if a first century boy laughed with his father. From the burning bush Moses understood the shoes had to come off because the ground had become holy. In our laughter, the ground also has become Holy as Jesus once laughed with Joseph.
Love, which is the very image of God we share, makes the presence of love holy. As I make my wife laugh, as I pray with the room becoming filled with a light of God, as I play with Tito, as I serve those around me in love, God reveals God’s glory.
We are getting ready as Christians to celebrate when God became material and came as a baby to make our common human life holy. Through the time on earth, Jesus went through being a boy, a young man, a man and he came into contact with all of common life. He giggled as only a 6-year-old boy can. He played as only a 10-year-old can. He grew in strength from a little baby. He laughed with friends. He love his parents and disappointed his parents. Christmastime recalls the time when God made all of life Holy through his very presence in blood, skin and food turning into bones, into heart and new brain cells. We celebrate God coming and also the whole of life in see through the eyes of wonder.
The challenge of Christmas remains to carry the wonder deeper into our lives. He who can wonder forgets God. Wonder draws me toward my son, my wife, my church, my fellow humans and even my enemies even as it draws me toward the divine light of God, who is always present.
The love of God comes from the awe of God.
