A Transforming Love

The Rt. Rev. Barry Howe, Bishop of West Missouri By The Rt. Rev. Barry Howe, Bishop of West Missouri

This is the night — the holy night — that captures our hearts and spirits with light and warmth and wondrous mystery. On this night, the complexity and the ornate of our frantic lifestyles are conquered by the simplicity of the encounter of divine and human. On this night, the constant and relentless forces of power pressing upon us are overcome by the emergence of the powerless. On this night, the grossness that subsumes much of what is all about us is pushed away by the pure beauty of sensitivity. On this night, the exploitation that dominates our relationships and produces the winds of war and separation is erased by the absence of any guile.

On this night, the alienation of hearts and souls is transcended by love. The inherent beauty and mystery and wonder that makes us as eager children again cannot be smothered or taken away from us. For we know, and acclaim once again, that the given-simple-gentle-powerless person that God has sent to us is the one who brings to us our peace and who guarantees for us our salvation!

In the days of the ancient people of God, the great prophets continually spoke with great hope about the coming of a king who would turn darkness into light for the people; a king who would model the ways of God in restoring the people’s special relationship with God. Even in the midst of oracles of judgment about the sinfulness of God’s people — turning their backs upon God and his laws and his will — the prophets would speak of a great light that would appear to overcome the distressing and oppressive darkness. God would raise up a new king for the throne of David who would lead the nation to victory and would bring justice and peace to their hearts and souls, and to their community life.

It was thus that each time a new king came to the throne, there was an upsurge of hope and a sense of new opportunity. But hard realism recognized that the new monarch would have his failings and suffer from the historical restraints of his circumstances. So the prophetic visions would look beyond to the perfect ruler who would come when God fully established his kingdom. And thus we hear in the prophecy of Isaiah offered this holy night what the crowning virtues of the perfect king would be. He would be a wonderful counselor, one with great wisdom; wisdom that could only come from the king’s special relationship with God.

He would be a mighty God: a hero warrior with divine attributes to lead the people in battle with the powers and forces of evil. He would be an everlasting father: a father forever to his people; a father with a strong guiding hand and with a gentle touch of affirmation. And he would be the Prince of Peace: one who would rule not just with the absence of war, but with the presence of justice and righteousness.

Long before the coming of the Christchild, this and other prophetic visions sang out of human redemption in the person whom God would provide as the ideal king, one who through God’s presence placed upon him would bring redemption from darkness and death; from slavery and oppression; from the ravages of war and class struggle; to peace and justice and righteousness.

It is this prophetic vision — proclaimed seven centuries before the birth of the Christchild — joined with the simple and unadorned story of a baby born in a stable outside the city of Bethlehem that gives us hope and fills our hearts with joy and thanksgiving on this night. But as with those prophetic visions of old, the harsh realism of the world in which we live is still out there beyond these hallowed walls, as it was beyond the angelic voices and humble shepherds who visited a hallowed stable. The one who some claimed was born to be king was not and is not the ideal king of prophetic visions. God’s kingdom has not been fulfilled in the hoped-for parameters spelled out in human terms. We, like the ancient people of God, remain beset by our own sin — by our turning our backs away from God — and we know intimately of war; of political intrigue; of selfish greed culminating in economic breakdown; of sinister misunderstandings of God that lead to religious warfare fueled by terriorism.

The baby humanly and divinely born of Mary and Joseph and of the Holy Spirit is not the ideal king. But he is the savior of the world — the savior of the world as it is with all its multitudinous flaws; the savior of the world through the divine presence of grace intimately saving you and me — drawing us and calling us into a new relationship with God that transforms us as the shepherds and Magi who glorify and praise God, and who take on the hard and tough work that the savior has given us to do — the hard and tough work that he teaches us to do through his human toil and labor as the Lord Jesus.

It is the intimacy of God literally touching us with the human hands of the Christchild-become-savior that renews the wonder and awe and sacred mystery within us this night. With the birth of the Christchild, God is proclaiming to us — to each of us created in his image — that we are truly loved and accepted for who we are, and for who we can be as he pours out his grace — his power of transcendent love upon us. In the life and ministry and death and resurrection of the one born to be our savior, God is giving to us not an ideal king defined by human terms, but the model and the power of divine love seeking to rule our hearts and souls.

What Jesus did in his human life with us — what he did in his ministry — was to share the divine love of God with one and then another who were transformed and made new. What we see again this night through eyes of faith is the presence of Jesus reaching out to you and to me with that power of divine love, transforming us and then calling us to love others as God truly loves us.

Is this not the dynamic that is life-giving for us? We need relationships that are deeply caring and transforming. We yearn for human contact that is pregnant with the loving touch of God. We want to be known by our name, and have others ask about our joys and our sorrows, our strengths and our weaknesses. We want this intimacy that transforms us and makes us new in the very midst of the vast and busy and complex existence that so overwhelms us.

God promises us this intimacy of his presence through the gift of the Christchild, who becomes our savior. God promises through his presence with us that this divine-human intimacy cannot be rescinded, cannot be taken away from us by any other power or force that seeks to define who we are.

But there remains a great challenge to us as we become the angelic voices of glory this night. It is the challenge to take upon us our new nature; our intimate relationship with God through his spirit empowering us; to take upon us the ministry of Jesus as Jesus made relationships with others; to thereby love as God loves us.

It is easy to sing the angelic choruses with joy and thanksgiving this night. It is terribly difficult to love others, particularly those who show no love for us. But it is the dynamic of loving others where we experience the intense love of God for us; where we experience that intimate love for which we yearn; where we know ourselves as transformed and made new in the divine-human relationship that is the essence of our being.

And what we must accept is that we cannot ultimately meet this challenge on our own. Jesus did not meet this challenge given to him on his own. He began his ministry by gathering together a community who would ultimately be his body serving in the world. We need help in being who we are called to be. We need the community who is built upon by individuals who commit their lives to the service in response to the intimate love of God for each one of them.

Together, we become the living organism of God’s presence in the world. Together, we become the shepherds and the magi who leave the hallowed confines of the stable for the holy work in the world.

God took on human flesh because it is in human flesh where we can know God. We are God’s beloved because we are empowered to love God in return. We give thanks for this love in joy and wonder and awe and mystery this night. We re-commit ourselves to extend this love to others. And we open ourselves again to be transformed and made new by this divine intimate love for us.