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God Burps
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Here comes Christmas again! Most people love it,
some are irritated by it, and some are just annoyed by the busyness and
hype.
Most of us
have some type of Christmas memories and expectations. My expectations
have gone through some phase changes over the years
…
yours probably have too.
I had some family traditions that made Christmas
different than any other time of year. My mother was full-blown Italian
… Italian Roman Catholic. That meant one thing for Christmas … fish
… fish on Christmas Eve … lots of fish on Christmas Eve … and wine.
I think it was the only time of year I liked
fish. It defiantly was the only time of year as a kid that my lips were
permitted to touch wine!
Christmas Eve was the big day. Not because of the
big “fish fest”, but because of the focus on family. We would eat our
Christmas Eve Italian meal … which included 9 fish dishes (for the 9
months Mary carried Jesus in her womb), and then we would open our
presents. But that wasn’t the peak of excitement. We would all go to
midnight mass and then begin visiting the slew of cousins. All this
visiting would focus around the family hub … my Nana and Naneu’s house
(Grandparents). And at there home was more food … fish, and homemade
Italian cookies by the mounds, and wine, and espresso, and lots of
conversation … loud conversation. I would usually get home sometime
before sunrise … around 3 or 4 am. That was Christmas!
I hope you
have good Christmas memories too.
I miss those days and their focus on
relationships.
During
my college days I read a poem written by my friend, Greg Osterberg,
“Deep in Silence.” Greg was the protestant campus minister where I
went to college. This poem has become one of my personal Christmas reads.
It goes like this:
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Deep In Silence
In
the midst of a darkness so deep
That
only stars unhindered in the absence of a moon
Could
give what light was needed
To
share in the event.
A
young woman cries in pain
Comforted
only by the whispered love
From
her new husband
In
a place far from home.
Soon
it is over.
The
smells of hay and dust
And
animal dung are chased away
By
the joy of hearing a screaming infant
In
need of feeding by his mother
On
a straw bed.
And
still that question keeps tugging
At
the corners of a much too
Tired
consciousness.
Will
it be as it was told me?
A
one who will save his people?
I
must only have been dreaming all this.
Naked.
Helpless. Hungry. Cold. Frightened.
God
cries, then burps ...
Drifts
slowly off to sleep
Comforted
by the warm closeness
Of
his mothers breast.
--- Greg Osterberg, 12-25-77
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God burps …
That sticks with me.
It helps me to understand the audacity of
incarnation.
It helps me to understand what Paul writes in
Philippians 2:
6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal's death on a cross.
God burps
…
To have an
intimate relationship with us.
He came to us to have a loving relationship with
us. To make that a possibility.
God put on humanity … God burped … became one
of us.
Why?
To teach us and to rescue us.
He teaches us the importance of our
relationships. That’s something we all intuitively understand …
that’s why my childhood Christmas was so important to me … the family
relationships.
God teaches us to care for each other by
following the example that Jesus gave.
Philippians 2: 3 Don't be
selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as
better than yourselves.4 Don't look out only for your own interests,
but take an interest in others, too.
5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
This year
my family … my wife and kids decided not to get presents for each other.
Actually, it was my kids idea.
I’m
looking forward to focusing on our relationships.
I’m
looking forward to enjoying each other.
I’m
looking forward to sharing some meals.
I’m
looking forward to burping.
So God burps.
God decided to put himself in a burp situation.
What really drives this home for me is that God
was on a rescue mission. The reason we have the Christmas image of baby
Jesus is because baby Jesus came to become grown up Jesus that would die
on a Roman Cross.
Die in our
place … that’s hard to comprehend.
Christmas is really about the resurrection.
Jesus death and resurrection.
Our
death and resurrection.
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