Random Reflections Inspired by Chrismtas (With Videos)

The first Cross that God took on was at the Incarnation itself. The Infinite clothed itself in the finite, and the vulnerable. What a burden this must have been, how jarring to shrink from the scope of eternity to that of the limited and the human. The first Cross was the manger itself. Thus in every Christmas there is the shadow of Good Friday.

One way in which the Incarnation, the vulnerability of God, stays with me constantly are the concrete relationships in my life. I only truly feel fulfilled when I can be completely open and honest with a person, and when I can feel comfortable with their openness and honesty with me. Love, real love, is about living within oneself that moment when God came as a babe, and the moment when he died on a cross. Whenever BS or outright lying becomes somehow necessary to maintain a connection with a person, I feel a terrible pain within myself. I find most small talk excruciating. I want to be open, I want to live in truth, I want to live into what Christmas is all about.

I don't want to live this kind of life:

There are so many people I see, including many Christians, who seem to have this sort of 'fortune' behind them and ahead of them. I can't stand pretense, or an unwillingness to be fully and truly open. Yet I can't be the Appolonius of this world. There is too much judgment and not enough recognition of the degree to which we are all in the same boat. But I would be lying if I did not say, and a hypocrite if I did not mention, that I am often so very tempted to speak just these words to oh, so many people. Jesus showed us the true depth of the human experience. Yet shallowness is the order of most human interactions.

But I don't want to be that person, I don't want to commit the same sin by judging. I want to live the grace that has been given to me, I want to accept, and love, and live out grace. I want to be what Terrance Malick suggested was the true way of God in The Tree of Life:

Compare these words to 1 Corinthians 13.

THAT is what it means for God to be vulnerable, and it is the Vulnerability of God, and the true redemptive power of that vulnerability, that Christmas is all about.