The Word became flesh and made his dwelling with us (John 1:14).

Drum roll, building, getting louder … music, beginning quietly in the bass register, but rising, crescendoing …sudden spectacular, full-throated chord, the entire symphony cranked all the way up, tutti fortissimo!  Cue the choir, angelic and earthly!

Wait … that’s it?  That’s all?  A baby?  Yeah, babies are cute and everything, but after all that build-up …

A baby?

When Heaven at long last initiates its invasion of Earth, the invasion force is a single baby?  The mighty angels light up the sky, sing the glorious news … and then depart the field?  God takes on all the powers and forces of the massed armies of Sin and Death by sending a baby?

And then?  Nothing much happens for thirty years or so.

And then?  About three years of activity, occasionally dramatic but mostly done in obscurity, off to the side, in out of the way places to out of the limelight people-- 

And then? A cross, a death, a tomb … and then strange reports of a tomb emptied.

What in the world is going on?

What is going on in the world is this: God himself shows up in person.  The Author writes himself into the play, becomes a character in the drama.  The uncreated Creator consents to become a creature.  Deity takes on our humanity.  The Word becomes a wordless infant (did you know that infant derives from Latin, meaning “without words”?)  The King of glory becomes a servant, becomes obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Christmas is the celebration of a miracle, the miracle we name “incarnation”: the Word who was and is God became flesh, became a human person just like us.  But it is an understated miracle.  “Understated” and “miracle” can’t go together, right?  Miracles are anything but understated!  When it’s God who’s acting, he always “goes big,” commands everyone’s attention, makes sure everyone notices, right?

Christmas —actually not “Christmas,” but Jesus! —shows us how Heaven goes about its work on Earth.  God’s work is patient (which often feels to us like “too slowly”), kind (respecting our creatureliness and limitations), doesn’t draw attention to itself (but is always “right there” for those who ask for eyes to see).  Incarnation means God’s way and God’s work is fundamentally and irreducibly personal, nothing abstract or theoretical or mass-marketed.  The Way of Jesus—the Way that is Jesus—is not an escape from bodies, houses, hunger, taxes, time, meals, wars, pandemics and parades; the Way travels right into them.

Personally.

Sometimes we do receive miracles that can’t be overstated: a rescue from death’s door, food on the table when there was nothing in the pantry, an unspeakable joy and a strange peace in the face of suffering.

But the real, ongoing, never-ending but easy-to-miss, understated miracle is this: His name is Emmanuel, God-with-us.  If healing comes through doctors, miraculously, or not at all, God is with us.  If rescue comes at the last second or not at all, God is with us.  If our steps are haunted by hunger or overwhelmed by abundance, God is with us.

“Why doesn’t God act?” we cry.  He has acted, he does act, he is acting, and he will act, but always along these lines: God in Christ acts by personally moving into the neighborhood, and starting to knock on doors.

Beginning with yours.

Merry Christmas!