I have always wondered what it must have been like, to be pregnant and feel Jesus’ little God-feet kicking, to hold the newborn Christ in tired arms, and to be face-to-face with God as the baby boy wakes up in the hay. Was it “just” the awe and wonder of new life, created somehow by love and now present like a gift, an immense responsibility, all hope and all anxiety and overwhelming joy… I wonder if it was that, or whether it was also more than that. Did Mary know? Did she remember the words the angel had said? Did she understand and take them in?
All the menfolk had wanted to see God. Moses even asked directly, and he was allowed to see God from behind, hiding in a crevice in the rocks. Elijah stood outside the cave when he encountered God – not in storms or earthquakes or fires, but in a “still small voice” or “a sound like powdered silence”… but no sighting of God. Many more were given dreams or visions, or had an angel turn up on their doorstep, but no one had ever seen God, and certainly not face-to-face.
But here, in this scene of mother and baby bonding over breakfast, Mary holds Jesus close and drinks in the scent of the Divine and studies his face – the face of God – in what is at the same time so normal, so ancient, such a repetition of what thousands and thousands of women had done since Eve, and yet, is so new, so secret, so revolutionary – here, a young mother is the first to see what so many have longed to see.
Time had been fulfilled and God had come to visit his people, to bring peace, to offer salvation, to help us to know the heart of God and to give us a face to the Name. In Jesus, we find God in a language with can better understand – actions, examples, parables… And yet, you may remember that there were times in the Gospel when Jesus sighed – a deep sigh of something like frustration: “Do you still not understand?”; “Where is your faith?”; “How long must I be with you?” and “I seem to be struggling to make myself understood!” (The latter is not a direct quote, you will appreciate, but it seems to me that that was sometimes part of the pain….)
I am working on a sermon in Danish, my mother tongue, which I have not spoken now for many years. The last time I did anything akin to preaching in Danish was some 25-30 years ago. When I speak to my parents, we speak the West Jutland dialect, so when I hear myself talk in formal Danish, it is a very odd experience. Language flows differently in English and Danish, words cannot merely be substituted, and meanings don’t overlap exactly from one word in one language to a seemingly similar word in another – it is almost a different process altogether. We will see how it goes when it is time to preach! Will it “work” and “flow” or feel wooden and cold? And will it be understood roughly the way I meant it by those who listen? No guarantees!
Anyway, I can only imagine what it would be like for God who is love, who doesn’t need words, who knows all things, who is in perfect Parent-Child-Spirit communion all the time, who is active but never moody or changeable, to try to make us understand… What must it be like to try to fit all of God’s heart and hopes into words to try to communicate them to our hearts, partial and only half paying attention, hearts with holes and woodworm dust, hearts with residue of glory and greatness, hearts that hear but can’t take in, that desire but cannot always carry out the good they (at least sometimes) wish to do?
But there, in the early hours of that first Christmas morning, there is a glimpse, I think, of what it will one day be like, when attention and love meet, when tenderness and vulnerability pause, like the first rays of dawn on the coast of awe, and no words are needed, as a woman sees what no man can see and live: The newborn face of Almighty God.