Advent 18

We celebrate the miracle of the incarnation at Christmas. It is the belief that Jesus came into the world as a human, and, therefore, understands first hand what it’s like to live in a body. He knew physical pain, suffered hunger and thirst, and cried real tears. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3, KJV). In the incarnation, Jesus signals that the physical world is a place where he has entered in order to work and to bless. But he doesn’t direct us to magical levers we must push in order to merit his attention. There’s a longer trajectory to the restoration we are receiving. 

Sarah Bessey in her book Miracles and Other Reasonable Things tells about how a serious car accident changed so much in her understanding of living in a body—especially one that breaks. She writes:

“We are made in the image of God, (Genesis 1:27) communal by creation. And my body isn’t an impediment to knowing and following and embracing God. It’s part of the whole redemption. It is also redeemed, blessed by the incarnation all over again. Even my body, as it now stood, both healed and unhealed, was blessed.“*

By choosing to be one with us this way, compacting all divinity into small flesh to live and move as we do, Jesus shows his respect and love for the body, and his desire to save us, body and soul. While he walked on earth, he prioritized healing people’s physical bodies. But how do we cope when we pray for healing, but it doesn’t happen? As Sarah says, we must learn to “hold both grief and hope in [our] hands at the same time.” There are glimpses of the restoration that are coming and have already begun this Advent. May we have eyes to see both the ordinary and extraordinary miracles along the way.

*Sarah Bessey. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019). 194.