Christmas is God’s great heavenly romance come-to-earth.
Today we build upon the theme of God’s tender romance that
we saw in Martin Luther’s (too often) neglected thought--
discussed in our previous post.[1] (Note that in discussion of God’s
tender romance Luther had not created something new but
instead had retained and carried on the vitality of long standing
traditions.)
God’s great Love Letter to us is vividly seen in the Christmas events. It is Christ come-to-earth: the very incarnated God come-to-us and also into our fragile, vulnerable flesh. In Christ, God chooses to be intimately close to us. God enters our dusty, mundane, sometimes cruel existence to bring a heavenly romance as near as possible to us. Some of the early masters showed the fragile, tender vulnerability of God’s loving entrance into our world in their artwork of the Nativity. One can look, for example, at Hugo van der Goes’s Nativity masterpiece, in which Jesus is a thin, naked babe lying starkly on the ground upon nothing but a bit of earthy straw. (See a link in our Notes.[2])
Let’s expand upon the idea of Jesus being God’s great Love Letter to us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is called the Word—the “with us” Word of God. (“With us” comes from another name for Jesus: “Emmanuel”—God with us.)
In essence, Christmas is about an entrance—the entrance of God into our world. In discussion of the Gospel of John, Larry Crabb offers this title for Christ’s coming: “HEAVEN’S REALITY HAS MOVED INTO YOURS.”[3] Crab describes each and every book of the Bible as a unique love letter from God. And one major theme of the Love Letter the Gospel of John offers is that now God’s Love Letter to us comes in the form of flesh and blood: indeed, “HEAVEN’S REALITY HAS MOVED INTO YOURS.” “And the Word [Christ] became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth”; John 1:14, NRSV, NRSVCE.
Yet how hiddenly, tenderly, and vulnerably he moves into our
world. It will take Jesus’ whole life on earth to proclaim the great
heavenly romance of God’s unending love for us--arriving hidden
in this Babe. Moreover, the great heavenly romance we are invited
into is a living Love Letter and a romance that will never end--that
will never leave us or let us down. Before Jesus left this earth he
said: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the
age”; Mt. 28:20, NRSV, NRSVCE. He is always present tense for
us--intimately present tense.
This ONE of God’s great Love Letter is always here. This
ONE of God’s great Love Letter waits to comfort, help, revivify,
restore, release us from darkness, forgive us, and grant us the joy
and peace of knowing SUCH LOVE. (Martin Luther says we
should pray to know this in an experiential way: “Ask God to
work faith in you. . .”[4])
How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is given;
so God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven. . . .
[O] come to us, abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel! [5]
For further thoughts about the "'Great Divine Romance of
Heaven' For Us," see an earlier post.[6]
We close with personal reflections/meditations upon our theme
and the Season:
“Meditations Upon a Snowy Christmas-tide Morn”
From my journal:The great strains of a Corelli piece are playing . . . It is Christmas day-- [9]
a cold Christmas . . . cold but blessedly white . . . and the house is merry
and warm.
The Baby sleeps in the manger . . . so near me in the crèche. . . . The same
Babe sleeps and wakes in my heart . . . "abides" as He once promised.
And I've lived with that abiding . . . and want to tell my secret . . . oh,
it's good . . . It is very good!!
C. S. Lewis: "Once in our world, a stable had something bigger in
it than our whole world" (The Last Battle).
An opening to prayer/meditation (sometimes the Lord
of the Incarnation seems to whisper):
Who am I?
I am someone who is Loved!
I am someone for whom the universe ⌀ ◑ ❂
was ✯ marvelously made—
someone for whom ‘LOVE-Came-Down’
in slow but willing steps
to give His joy, His heart, His ALL.
And He would do it again
TODAY ✧✧✧ for me
if necessity should be.
I am someone who is Loved
if I never lift a thought to love and serve in return
(as the tiny babe is thus loved).
Yet even if I give my life for Him,
I am Loved so much already
that it could not add one pebble
to His already unending Love.
His Love for me begins in the
untraceable origins of time ✫ ☽ ♢
✧ ◑ ❂ and lasts to ✧✧✧ beyond Infinity.
That is who I am. It is enough!
It will stretch my comprehension all my life.
I am someone who is L♡ VED!
Meditating upon (quoting) John 1:14 (AMPC):
🔔 “Meditating upon the Homeless Christ Child on a Snowy
Christmas Night”
Where would the BABY’s dear head be laid
If He came once again this Dark Night? 🌌
Off some ❆ snowy ❅ street? In an alley nook?
🎆 Amid shadows and harsh City Lights?
We’re told He was “Homeless” that ⭐ Ancient Night! ⭐
Could He be “Homeless” ONCE MORE?
‘No place for his head’--see these people the same!
And see how they ROAM past my door.
(With reflection upon Lk. 9:58; Mt. 2: 13-23, 25:40; Lk. 2:7.)
“This is my personal opinion, but I do believe we are creating,
little by little, a Charles Dickens world [of forgotten persons] in
America. It need not be. Let us seek to make room in our
hearts … for Him in them this Christmastide, and help to turn it
around for Christ's dear sake.” - Rev. Robert H. Crilley.[12]
Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1901, 1949), pp. 159, 64-65, 170 (Chap. 63, 32, 68;
Julian of Norwich: Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge, O.S.A. and James
Walsh, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 296 (Chap. 59), Long Text.
