Come, Thou Long-expected Jesus

On my mantle I have arranged the couple dozen figurines of my Fontanini nativity set, each character frozen in a perpetual gaze. The young pan piper seems lost in his melody, and another youth leans against a fence, musing toward my hearth. The shepherds and most of the sheep lift their faces to my ceiling. The goose girl and the old garlic farmer, too, pause to watch. An ox and donkey rest in the stable, ready to chew their cud, while a token angel hovers in the background. Joseph and Mary kneel near them, hands raised in anticipated adoration. The two look down at an empty manger, because high church tradition and common sense ask me to leave it so until the Day comes to celebrate Jesus’ actual birth. Each creature in my crèche holds its breath in a resin-bound chest. Waiting for God.

I, too, wait. But what kind of God do I expect?

I wait for an accessible God, a Holy Infant, who in his vulnerable innocency softens our fearful and resistant hearts and makes a manger his crib. How gentle is a God who thinks it best to slip unobtrusively into the human race amid only a couple dozen witnesses. Such action St. Isaac of Syria calls “exalted humility.”

The Word who became human clothed himself with humility, and thus spoke with us in our human body…Creation could not behold him unless he took part of it to himself and thus conversed with it: only thus was creation able to hear the words of his mouth face to face.*

I wait for a restoring God, a Saving Victim, because life’s experiences deny us the naiveté of “children nestled all snug in their beds.” When the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Child matures, his creatures behold him but cannot bear to hear his words. His humility descends even lower, for far from respecting him at least as a decent human being, his own ravage the very body designed to embrace them. How merciful is a God who thinks that his bloodied hands give best the healing touch a broken creation needs. He willingly makes a manger his coffin.

I wait for an intervening God, a Warrior King, as thousands of African women protest unrestrained mass rapes in Congo, and Port-au-Prince residents hope in vain for homes. I plead for his sovereign power to rescue the oppressed and destroy evil once and for all. How just is a God who thinks that truth and righteousness must prevail. Yet, as in the Bethlehem grotto, he seems to have hidden himself.

I finally catch a glimpse of the Warrior King in the hazy cosmic distance of the last book of Holy Scripture. St. John’s apocalyptic vision reveals he is not at all what I would expect: a Lamb looking as though it had been slain. But this humble, sacrificial Lamb standing in the midst of the throne of heaven is more like a royal lion. He takes command of all judgment of the world and ushers in an everlasting kingdom of peace. Infinitely outnumbering my token figurine, angels encircle the throne and sing; this time every creature in heaven, on earth and sea, joins in**:

 Worthy is the Lamb,

who was slain,

to receive power

and wealth

and wisdom

and strength

and honor

and glory

and praise!

Returning to my Fontanini crèche, I defy tradition and common sense to place my tiny lamb figurine in the empty manger. Someday, God will make it his throne.

Come again, long-expected Jesus.

 

*Daily Readings with St. Isaac of Syria, p. 66

**Revelation 5:6-13

So is Woman an Add-On?

In my recent blog post, “Can You Really Know Yourself?” the two authors I quoted threw the word “man” and “mankind” around with the carefree abandon of conventional 4th and 18th century linguistic use. Probably the women of St. Basil’s and Alexander Pope’s day knew these words often included both genders. Going further back, Jewish and Christian women of ancient times most likely understood that the Scripture text, “Let us make man in our image” included woman, too.” Right? Well, maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t.

Today, gender inclusive language is one attempt to clarify for both sexes that females have equal presence and participation in any reference to humans as a whole. This is an example of how as a society changes in its self-concept, its language also changes. But let’s face it, inclusive language is still in the awkward stage. For example, “When the student cites an entry from an encyclopedia in [his/her; his or her] essay, [he/she; s/he; he or she] should follow the Chicago Manual of Style.” Makes for a beautifully flowing sentence, doesn’t it?

So until our language accurately and succinctly expresses gender inclusion, certain accommodations are called for. Both men and women have historically required reference points that help them come to know themselves. In the Bible’s case particularly, all of the human race needs to be able to see itself appropriately reflected in its narratives and poems on occasion. Thus, it has not only been since the 1970s and 80s that people have worked at gender inclusive communication. In its ancient languages, the scripture of Genesis 1:26-27 used the word “man” (Heb.: 'ādām; Grk.: anthrōpos) to identify the category of creature, then succinctly clarified the word’s scope of meaning.

Likewise, St. Basil was concerned that his 4th century listeners clearly understand who the “man” is in Gen. 1:27:

“Man!” says the woman, “And what about me? It is the male who was created, for,” she says, “He did not say ‘her’ who is man, but by the term ‘man’ He is shown to mean the masculine.” But no! in order that nobody . . . should take the expression “man” . . . to refer only to the male, the Scripture has added: “male and female He made them.”[1]

We women, then, are not simply add-ons to God’s initial creation of the imago dei. As Basil went on to emphasize, “The woman also possesses, like the male, what has been created in the image of God.”[2]

[1] Johanna Manley, ed., trans., Wisdom. Let Us Attend (Menlo Park, Calif.: Monastery Books, 1997), 712. 
[2] Ibid.

Can you really know yourself?

As evident in his poem, "Know Thyself", the great 18^th cent. poet, Alexander Pope, wondered what the results would be from taking a good look at ourselves.

KNOW THYSELF

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

St. Paul would likely agree with Mr. Pope when he admits in 1 Cor. 13:9, 12a, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part . . . For now we see a riddle (Grk. enigma) in a mirror . . . ”

But were we humans always made of such contradictory character? No. Of mystery, perhaps, but not of variance. The Scripture’s portrayal of the creation of the first man and woman is this: God said, “Let Us make man in Our image and likeness (Gen. 1:26).”

Commenting on the verse, St. Basil the Great said,

From this, begin to know yourself.
These words had not yet been applied to any of the creations.
God said, ‘Let there be light.’ . . . One word, and they had come to be.
At this point, man does not yet exist,
and there is deliberation regarding man . . .
Note the dignity befitting you.
He has not initiated your origin by a command,
but there has been counsel in God
to determine how to introduce into life
this living being worthy of honor.[1]

[1] Johanna Manley, ed., trans., Wisdom. Let Us Attend, (Menlo Park, Calif.: Monastery Books, 1997), 709.