Advent is a season of great joy and great anticipation. It gives us all a little reminder of the joy and wonder of new life, and lets us be a little bit of a kid again. For me it has always been a season I have really been able to connect with, I'll admit, enjoy, a bit more than the others.
Advent is a season the Lutheran church does so well. With complex liturgies, and beautiful music it brings so much joy and wonder to the season, that when Christmas Eve roles around its hard not to think of Jesus' birth as anything but a miracle. That's the goal right?
Well, as much as a love advent, I think that sometimes we lose some of the miracle of Jesus' birth in stupor. A huge part of the miracle of Jesus is not just the fact that he is divine, but it is also in the fact that he is human. I think especially in the season of advent we focus on the divinity of Christ. We picture Jesus as this little perfectly pink boy, sleeping in a manager, with Mary and Joseph lovingly watching over him and everyone near by at peace. We picture an idealistic divine birth.
Here's the thing, Jesus was a human baby too, and Mary was a human mother. Mary would have gone through labor, she would have screamed, sweated and probably even cried. Jesus would not have come out all clean and cuddly, but wet, cold, and probably screaming. Mary would have been exhausted, and probably overwhelmed. Jesus would be experiencing the world as a human for the very first time.
I think that as we seek to have and maintain a personal relationship with Jesus, it is important to remember that we share in the human experience, which starts with birth. Jesus was born into the world as our Lord and Savior, but also as Jesus, son of Joseph; and that is the real miracle, not the star over the stable, wise-man, or peace that was found when Jesus went to sleep.
