"The Descent of Tender Love: The Christmas Story"

Ps. 116:5, NIRV 

    There is a Søren Kierkegaard parable that helps us understand the coming of God’s tender love in the Christmas story—in the Incarnation:

     There was once a young king who—unbeknownst to anyone—fell in love with a humble maiden in his kingdom.  Even though his love gave him joy, he also found himself in a troubling predicament.  How was he to make his love known?  If he came to the maiden with all his mighty kingly love, she might cower; he would never know her true heart.  Would she really love him?—for he indeed wanted there to be a mutuality of love and understanding between them.  Might she hide secret regrets?  She might not feel she was worthy of such love.  Or, because of his power, she might feel she hadn’t really been able to make up her own mind.  “Did she fully love him, after all?” she might wonder later.  No, the king would not command her love!

     Kierkegaard says this is what it is like to be “the object of God’s love”—a God who longs for a real “point of union” with us, not one in which we feel we are constrained by God’s majesty and power.

     In the parable the young king finally decides there was only one thing to do: he will take on the humble circumstances of a peasant and go into the maiden’s community incognito—as one who serves.  As an equal, he hopes to win her genuine love.

     Kierkegaard compares this story to the Incarnation: Jesus coming among us in the “likeness of the humblest”—in “servant-form,” as one who experiences “all sorrow and all love” in his sojourn among us.^[1]  Love Came Down at Christmas! (Christina Rossetti).

     And the humble nature of God’s gift and coming is never more evident than in the stable ^[2]:

In a shabby stable—a tender Babe.

In a straw-filled manger—the Child of God.

To shabby hearts—comes such TENDERNESS.

As a lamb calls its mother

there’s a vision of angels

and the tender descent

of our God—

earthy, humble,                    

intimate, defenseless,

the tender descent

⭐ of God. 

     There is no greater representation of God’s sacred tenderness than the Nativity: an utterly vulnerable Babe lying in a lowly manger in a cattle stall.  Meanwhile angels sing of God’s glory, love, and unspeakable gift to unkempt shepherds, considered to be among the least of these in the culture of that day.

      “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us…,” Luke tells us (1:78, NRSV).  And this “dawn from on high”—Jesus—would come in great vulnerability to teach us about the Kingdom of God, where we are the beloved of a King.  However, Jesus teaches us to see a King who would rather be known as our beloved Father or Abba (Papa, Dad[3]) than as a distant, much-feared King-Lord. 

Jesus, the Son (or Mediator; 1 Tim. 2:5) shows us all this in

words, in tender love and compassion, and then finally by

giving his all—his life. The Apostle Paul says: “For you know

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich,

yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his

poverty might become rich [in God’s grace, love, and mercy]”;

2 Cor. 8:9, NIV.  Meanwhile, Jesus also tells us, "The Father

and I are one"; Jn. 10:30, NRSV.  All Jesus does is a

mirror of the Father’s heart (Luther).[4]

 

     Anthony Bloom helps us understand the tenderness and mystery of the revelation that comes to us in the Christmas story:

[T]he impossible thing, is that the Inaccessible One has become accessible, the transcendent God has become flesh and dwelt among us.  The holiness which surpassed every human notion and was a separation reveals itself to be otherwise: the very holiness of God can become infinitely close without becoming any the less mysterious. . . .  And when we see the crèche of the Nativity in our imagination . . . and can take the Child-God in our hands, we are confronted with a greater mystery than that of the imperceptible God.  How can we understand that the full depth of infinity and eternity lies here, hidden and at the same time revealed by a frail human body that is fragile and transparent to the presence of God? (emphasis ours).^[5]
  

     Meanwhile, Pope Francis would tell us that in the Christmas story--in this story of the Incarnation--we see that “God is in love with our smallness, that he made himself small in order to better encounter us….”^[6]  Yes, in the Christmas story we see, indeed, that God is in love with us!--smallness and all!  Furthermore, we see that (God helping us) we are to pass this love on to others--their smallness and all, notwithstanding. 

     Love is such a fragile, undersized word.  It is so difficult for it to contain 

all the graciousness, love-longing, mercy, forgiveness, tenderness (the list 

could go on and on) of God “stooping” in the Incarnation to meet us.  

Words could never capture it all!  LOVE-CAME-DOWN at Christmas: 

“stooping” to BE that love, to BE that Grace, to BE that mercy and 

forgiveness, to BE all of that love-longing, to BE intimately close to us, 

and to BE our help—world without end (Lk. 2, Eph. 3:21; KJV).

     The great poet English George Herbert helps us see the "strange story" 

behind the mystery of LOVE-CAME-DOWN :

Then let me tell thee a strange story.

The God of power, as he did ride

In his majestic robes of glory,

Resolved to light; and so one day

He did descend, undressing all the way.^[7]

     We are to picture God taking off all majestic robes to descend, to come as the Christ Child—“stooping”—joining us in utmost vulnerability: the tender, enfleshed Love of God.  We Western people like logical actions--explanations.  But when God gave us the greatest gift, it was in the “strange story” of a tender descent of Grace and dis-robed, vulnerable Love that would forever defy logic.

⭐⭐⭐

Further reflections for meditation upon our theme and the Season:

Christmas meditations (near the crèche):

⭐⭐⭐

                    

     (With meditation upon Jn. 14:18, 1 Jn. 4:16, and Christina Rossetti's 

poem "Love Came Down at Christmas.")

⭐⭐⭐

An opening to meditation/prayer (especially for Christmas Eve):

Oh, Baby Jesus, can I pick You up and hold You
and feel Your tiny breathing in my arms--
and feel the miracle of life
and breath spun from Your Father?
Dear Infant Jesus, soft
here 

in my arms . . .

     (The reader is invited to continue with her/his own imaginative 

meditations[8]--entering this scene with heart, mind, and soul.)

⭐⭐⭐

“Tiny Miracle (an imaginative meditation[9] at the manger)”

⭐⭐⭐

“Bursting the Seams of Heaven (a Christmas meditation)” 

 LOVE-CAME-DOWN . . .

 to you; 

  LOVE-CAME-DOWN . . .

 to me--

     LOVE burst the seams of heaven . . . 

entered hiddenly,

took a shabby, stable bed

in the fragile flesh of a Babe:

in the humble flesh of you,

in the frail flesh of me . . .

bone of our bone, at last,

flesh of our flesh--

LOVE came down!

     (With reflection upon Lk. 2, Gen. 2:22-23, and C. Rossetti's poem.)

     "His love for us is sweetly tender, and wise, and strong.  It showed

itself tender ... in that it induced Him to assume our flesh." - St. Bernard

(Sermon XX on "The Song of Songs.") 

⭐⭐⭐

Prayer in the quiet awe of night:  

❆ ❅ ❃

“Through the Pages of our Lives (a meditation upon ‘EMMANUEL: 

God-with-us’)”

(With reflection upon Mt. 28:20, 1:23; Ex. 3:12-14; 1 Kgs. 19:12;

Isa. 42:3; Gen. 26:3, 31:3; Rev. 21:3, etc.; and Walter Hilton’s classic

words: “the veins of . . . [God’s] whispering.” ^[10])

⭐⭐⭐

 (See additional blog posts after the “Notes” in Newer/Older Posts,

including more Christmas posts.[11])

………………….

Notes:

1. “Kierkegaard: A Parable of a King and a Maiden,” (from Philosophical Fragments,

Chap. 2); in A Glorious Revolution:

https://trinitypastor.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/kierkegaard-a-parable-of-a-king-and-a-maiden/.

2. Meditations, prayer/poetry/proverbs throughout by Lorraine B. Eshleman

(exception: see Note 7).

3. See Mk. 14:36 (regarding Abba, many scholars believe this intimate Aramaic address

for Father must have been used more frequently by Jesus, since it shows up in

usage by the early church, e.g., Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).  Also see Pope Francis’s

thoughts about Abba (quoted earlier) in "Pope Francis and the Tender 'Music

of the Language of the Lord'";

https://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2016/06/

4. Martin Luther, Large Catechism (1529).

5. Metropolitan Anthony [Bloom] of Sourozh with Marghanita Laski, God and Man
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971, 2004), pp. 122-124.

6. Yonat Shimron, “’How do we welcome the tenderness of God?’ Pope Francis’s

Christmas Eve homily, Religious News Service, 12/24/14;

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/12/24/welcome-tenderness-god-pope-francis-christmas-eve-homily/.

7. George Herbert, “The Bag.”

8. This is a classic style of meditation. See this style discussed in "Why Christmas?

Why Christ?": in the text and Note 14 there;

https://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2018/12/why-christmas-why-christ.html

9. See Note 8 above.

10. Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, trans. John P. H. Clark and Rosemary Dorward (New York: Paulist Press, 1991) Book Two, No. 46, p. 302 (quoting

Job 4:12: “veins of his whispering”).

11. For other Christmas posts, see https://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-tender-romance-of-gods-love.html; https://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2017/12/gods-greatest-love-letter-to-us-tender.html;

https://sacred-tenderness-christian-tradition.blogspot.com/2018/12/why-christmas-why-christ.html