Lately, I have been feeling my humanity acutely. In fact, if I were to pick a theme for the last year of my life, it would be just that: learning what it means to be human. In the last twelve months, I have felt a full range of emotions and gone through a full range of experiences. I have moved to a new city in a new country. I have celebrated successes and suffered losses. I have felt angry, anxious, and elated. I have doubted others, doubted myself, and doubted God. And most of all, I have been completely out of control in the midst of it. But this is what I’m learning: humanity is beautiful. The path to God is found not in becoming less human, but in becoming more wholly the human that he created me to be.
It seems appropriate to be reflecting on this topic during Advent. For many years past, I have come into this season with warm, fuzzy feelings. Visions of wise men, angels, shepherds, and stars floated through the nativity scene in my head, not to mention all the glitz of garlands and ornaments and trees. But I’m coming to realize that the whole idea of Christmas isn’t glamorous—it’s unthinkable.
In coming to earth, Christ, God With Us, declared quite remarkably that humanity is not something to shrink from, but something to be embraced. God came to earth in the form of a baby. He was born not into nobility, but to a young unwed mother who became a social outcast. He was the target and the cause of a massive genocide at the hand of an evil ruler, and this forced his family to become refugees in Africa. Jesus found it good during his birth, his life, and his death to become an outcast, to become poor, to come in the midst of controversy. He came fully into this mess that we call humanity.
And at times, it is a mess. Too often, when I walk around the downtown eastside, my eyes never leave the ground. It’s easier that way. When I look down, I see trash and needles and shuffling feet pushing carts down the sidewalk. I see the wreckage of a broken humanity, but I don’t see the faces of it. Too often I avoid those faces because I am afraid that I will see my own brokenness reflected in their eyes.
I have been taught for years upon years that humanity was a trap I could only escape upon entering eternity. I was taught that to be human was to carry weakness and therefore shame. Because of this, it is my tendency to try to be superhuman, or at least to appear so. But I am now coming to see that God’s desire for us is wholeness, not escape. In his coming, Christ invites us to dive into a life that is messy with humanity—a life full of growth, pain, laughter, loneliness, and love. And this invitation to a full life is extended to all. No one is beyond it: not our friends in this broken neighborhood, and not me. This is the Kingdom of God.
So this Christmas, let us bake, draw, drum, laugh, cry, sing, and eat to the glory of God. Let us embrace the fullness our wonderfully messy humanity. Let us contemplate what it means that Christ became one of us. And let us celebrate that we are being made whole by God Among Us.