Remembering, even when it's winter.

“To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God.”

1st Sunday after Christmas - Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7, John 1:1-18

There are non-canonical gospels¹ that make the infant and adolescent Jesus look and sound a bit like a super-hero — like the Awesome Being described in the first verses of John’s gospel, this Sunday’s reading.

The canonical gospels don’t go there. In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John there is little mention of Jesus until he is an adult, so we are free to imagine that young Jesus was like any other baby or adolescent.² Sometimes wonderful, delight-giving and full of genius and grace. It is hard to imagine Jesus being poopey, pukey, whiny or inconsolable, but if he was truly human, he must have been those things too.

I find that comforting. I have some of those less-than-pleasant qualities. I get a good look at them when I show up for prayer or meditation. Although my stated purpose is to be still in God’s presence, what actually happens is that my mind starts running “the interior soap opera (and) constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in my head…³” It is usually poopey, pukey, petty and otherwise unlaudable stuff.

The adult Jesus has miracle moments. But the Jesus of the gospels is also very human. He loved his friends. He was afraid. He wept. He seemed to like dinner parties. He could be harsh. He didn’t always listen to his mother. He sometimes went fishing with the disciples and sometimes wandered off alone to pray. Very human.

I do not understand how the Awesome Being — “the Word that was in the beginning with God” and “through whom all things came into being” — can also be very human. For that matter, I do not understand the color yellow. Or orange. Or purple. Or green. But let me see a field of wild flowers and I am overwhelmed by the delight and beauty of it all.

I think that’s all that gospel writer asks of us this week: to “receive” it. To trust it. To appreciate the amazing beauty of it and remember it when it’s winter outside and it seems like all of the summer colors are gone. They’re not. They are in and part of us as surely as the the Word became flesh and lived among us. And somehow still does.

Peace.

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For anyone thinking about starting or renewing a meditation or prayer practice in the New Year, I can recommend a book called “Into the Silent Land: The Practice of Contemplation.” Its language will be familiar to anyone who has tried mindfulness or Buddhist-inspired meditation. I’ve been reading the book for at least a month, and I am only on page 52 because I keep re-reading the pages I read the day before— they are that rich, helpful and reassuring. As one of the blurbs on the back cover says: The book is “sharp, deep, with no cliches, no psychobabble and no short cuts. Its honesty is bracing, its vision utterly clear; it is a rare treasure.” Well said.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

1. In the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus as a boy is said to have healed people and turned clay figures into living birds.

2. Somewhat free anyway. In Luke 2:41-52, the twelve year old Jesus amazes his elders in the Temple.

3. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, Martin Laird, O.S.A. (Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., London, 2006) at 15.