wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. [But] the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt 7:13–14).
Joseph the carpenter chose the hard path when an easier one was surely available. So did his son. Joseph exhibits the behavior his baby will grow up to preach about. Joseph’s quiet, difficult choice is central in Matthew’s version of the Christmas story. Not the Virgin Mary, curiously. Luke places her on center stage. But not here. It’s the dad.
“For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Without words, Joseph shows us the sacrifice of the hard path at Christmas. His Son will soon follow. Ditto for the Son’s children who call themselves disciples, marked in baptism with the cross of Christ forever.
For further reflection:
1. Discuss this line from the essay: “Joseph never once speaks in this story or anywhere in the Bible. He does more than he says.”
2. Read slowly Matthew 7:13–14. In your own words, try to restate the gist of Jesus’ wisdom in this passage.
9. God Con Carne
“. . . you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12).
A wonderful sixteenth-century painting by Pieter Bruegel (The Adoration of the Kings, 1564) depicts the magi who finally arrive at the manger. The wise men are a little late and actually don’t appear on Jesus’ birthday with the shepherds and the rest of the Christmas cast (see Matt 2:1–12). In this old painting, the magus who seems the oldest kneels before the babe. Jesus displays his full humanity for the old man who leans in closely to get a better look, his gaze precisely at the level of the baby’s groin. “Get a load of this, Mister Man of Science,” the baby Jesus seems to say.
At Christmas, the church gathers to celebrate the utter humanity of God who broke into our world with skin and full plumbing. Theologians call this the incarnation and the literal renderings of this word are a little startling. For example, chili con carne, “spicy stew with meat,” comes from the same root as incarnation, as do carnivore, carnal, and carnage.
I remember Ferdinand the Duck in the movie Babe, which is generally about a precocious pig who thinks he’s a sheepdog. Ferdinand learns the ugly truth about Christmas dinner—who exactly serves as the main dish—and shouts his dark discovery from the rooftop to the rest of the barnyard. “Christmas means carnage! Christmas means carnage!” For those who recall the eventual dark fate of the baby Jesus, Ferdinand ironically isn’t far from the truth.
Carnivore, carnal, carnage. All these words have something to do with “flesh.” We claim at Christmas that God once came into the world in a small, out-of-the-way town, enfleshed in the baby Jesus. Someone has pointed out rather graphically (if not crassly) that it might be better to explain the incarnation by using the phrase God con carne. That is, “God with flesh on.” And so baby Jesus offers an eyeful in Bruegel’s painting to make sure these learned men of stars and sky know precisely what’s at stake.
*
Whether you celebrate Christmas as a time to gather with family or because you love to sing the old carols; whether you’re a true believer or you’re really not sure what you believe; whether Jesus completely defines your life or simply gives us all an excuse to throw a little light on winter’s darkness—regardless of your faith or perhaps lack of it, the incarnation is the very centerpiece on the Christian family table of fantastic theological claims. The marvelous array of Christian writing, art, and hymnody all rely on the verified plumbing of this little baby.
From Rembrandt to Raphael, from Handel to Haydn, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Dorothy Day, God con carne was not just an idea. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a scroll of philosophical precepts written in golden calligraphy, wrapped smartly in bands of cloth and lying in a library.” No. For so many saints known and unknown to us, Jesus reveals God in a pinch-able way and gives the immortal and invisible creator both a body and a name.
Unlike any other religion in this regard, Christians do not strive to know God as much as God strives to know and communicate with us. And this is difficult for God. Writer Philip Yancey:
God is infinite, intangible, and invisible. If I may use such language, we humans have little sympathy for the problems that must confront a Being who desires to relate to us. Baron von Hugel drew the analogy of a man’s relations with a dog. The parallel was generous to us. An infinite God relating to human beings presents far more of a challenge than a man relating to his dog—perhaps a man communicating with a wood tick is a closer analogy.12
Suppose the church can indeed entice you to swallow the incarnation. Then it only follows (claim twenty centuries of theologians) that if God can show up on barn straw, then God can show up anywhere. If God can fill up a baby’s flesh, then God can fill any flesh. Jesus says as much in the New Testament. “I am the light of the world,” he says in John’s gospel (8:12). No, wait a minute, “You are the light of the world,” he says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:14). Well, which is it anyway? Won’t you make up your mind, Jesus? It turns out that Jesus at Bethlehem is only the beginning of God’s enfleshed appearances. God intends to get into our own skin. And from here on out there’s no telling where God might show up. So if the church can lead you to buy the incarnation of Jesus, then we’ll also help you believe other fantastic claims—such as divine presence in bread and wine, in water, in Christian community, indeed, in all of creation.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who came to Christianity only after wondering if God was in the world at all, once wrote these poignant words sometime before his death in 1881 in Russia, illustrating one possible response when a person is really grasped by the reality of God’s incarnation. “Love all God’s creation,” he wrote, “the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love.”
If God can show up as a baby, then God can show up anywhere. God con carne—filling Jesus, filling his church, filling the whole world.
For further reflection:
1. Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983) has described Christianity as “the end of all religion.” Instead of religious adherents ceaselessly striving to gain access to God, Christ reverses the trend and comes to humanity unbidden in the incarnation. Do you agree with Schmemann’s assessment? Why or why not?
2. Discuss Yancey’s analogy of the wood tick. Can you think of other apt analogies?
12. Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, 109.
10. Unacceptable
“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:11).
For many years, at some point during the Twelve Days of Christmas, I’ve read the verses from John 1:1–18 into the wind, slowly, line by line, usually after a long hike on the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist (December 27) from the summit of Table Rock (3,124 feet), one of the most prominent peaks in upstate South Carolina. As I read, I’m reminded of the incredible claims the church makes about Jesus. “He was in the beginning with God. All things
