The Feast of the Holy Family
has always been a bit difficult
for me to relate to. The perfect family
just seemed too perfect to serve as a model. As
I’ve grown older and hopefully wiser, I’ve come
to appreciate some
aspects of this feast in different ways.
I’ve come to appreciate
Joseph’s role more and more. I’ve tried to
imagine his feelings when he
heard of Mary’s pregnancy; and then the wonderment of a vision of an
angel. It must have been a roller
coaster of disappointment, betrayal, confusion followed by an
unprecedented awe
at a personal message from God, delivered by an angel.
Besides having to make sense of all these
feelings he had to be a man of action; taking Mary into his home and
then to Bethlehem.
Imagine the terror and
helplessness Joseph must have felt as
Mary endured the fear and horrific pain of childbirth in a dirty stable. Imagine the fierce love he must have felt as
he held Jesus for the first time. Imagine
the depth of his love for Mary as he comforted and cared for her after
the
birth. Imagine the strength it took to
realize their danger and make the grueling trip to Egypt.
Imagine how painful it must have been for him
to leave the rest of his family behind.
As I think about all these
things it occurs to me that they
are different facets of family life that we all must face.
Disappointment, confusion, fear, strength,
fortitude and love….all aspects of our lives. Joseph
lived through them with an abiding faith in
God’s goodness. God entrusted Jesus to
Joseph, to show him a
faith filled life. He has also entrusted Jesus to us; so the question
becomes:
are we ready to deal with the disappointments, confusion, fear,
strengths, and
loves in our lives as well as Joseph did? God
thinks so.
On one side of the equation we have the
outlandish and
grace filled
story of a pregnant virgin teenager, her husband and the entirely
unlikely appearance of the messiah as a… baby?
God as
a baby? It is unthinkable in some ways! So tiny, so vulnerable,
so… so needy! And yet evidence of life force like no other. And
evidence of grace heaped upon grace. Imagine the clutch of His tiny
hand around your finger. We all know what that feels like with a baby,
imagine if the baby were Him.
As if that is not the most, excuse the entirely avoidable pun –
inconceivable turn of events, let us fast forward to the other bookend.
Next stop is death on a cross. What? So if this is actually God, why is
He struggling through the narrow, steep and stony paths of Jerusalem,
with wood lashed to his back, wounds oozing, making his way to
Golgotha?
The utter absurdity of God as criminal! It can't be, can it? Once
again, our King shows up –first as a baby and now as someone about to
go down and go down hard. What kind of God is that?
The Crèche and the Cross provide the container for the dynamics
of our redemption. This state makes it both very easy and yet
incredibly hard to work with.
Enter in grace, ever flowing grace upon grace. That is the very God
that we need. The God who comes to us always in vulnerability, wanting
to heal and not to punish, wanting to console, wanting to support,
wanting to teach, wanting bring new life.
The God as mighty King metaphor can't work as easily. Think of the
mighty King, the supreme leader of men… Sitting upon a throne; awaiting
the prostrations of his minions, with their taxes and their homage.
They cower before the King.
No our God is different. Our baby God, our dying God works in a new way.
The gifts bestowed are from Him to us, are given freely and we are
already saved. The instructions are fairly simple, and as a result, are
very difficult to follow…
Love the Lord God. Love your neighbor. Serve others. Live in peace.
Forgive, forgive, forgive. Receive what God gives and in turn, give it
freely to others. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So the gifts are bountiful and the payment is… wait, can't I just write
a check? You mean I have to go out and actually live in this love?
Give? Receive? Let go of power? Control? It sounds pretty risky.
And indeed it is.
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