That’s me and my son, Liam, ten years ago. A few minutes before this photo, I had placed him lower on my chest. With great effort, he wiggled upward a few inches until his ear aligned with my heart.
I remember thinking, That’s like me trying to get to the Father’s heart.
I sensed a divine whisper. Ah, Brian, it’s the other way around. I’m the baby moving toward your heart — you need only be still enough to receive me.
In the photo, baby Liam is quiet and clean. But seven weeks prior, in the delivery room, he came into the world as most humans do, in a screaming mess of scarlet mucus. This extract is kindly reproduced from Renovare's weekly newsletter.
“The arrival of God in human history,” writes Mimi Dixon, “was humble and awkward and messy.” This was true not just of Jesus’ birth, but of everything leading up to and surrounding it: like the trek to Bethlehem, ninety miles for a nine-month-pregnant woman; like the scorn of family and friends who thought they knew where that baby came from; like a cave and straw and animal droppings.
What a way to come into the world. What a way to make us wonder.
A certain kind of wonder is sparked by immensity. We look at the sky. God is big; we feel small. And so we should.
A different kind of wonder is sparked by Incarnation. The same Eternal Unbodily Personal Power who spoke forth galaxies took on a local little body. God was small; our souls feel their immense worth. And so they should.
Meditating on how the Son of God Eternal emptied himself to become the Son of God Incarnate is a greenhouse for spiritual growth.
Kenosis is the term used to describe Christ’s self-emptying, coined from a word in Philippians 2. Theologians wrestle over what exactly Jesus emptied himself of and the passage leaves room for interpretation. For certain, divine power and privilege was left behind in his arrival.
What the passage does say is that we are to think of ourselves as Jesus thought of himself. And how was that? He didn’t exploit equality with God. He embraced limitations. He made himself small—small as a baby whose ear is on your heart.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
This extract is kindly reproduced from Renovare's weekly newsletter.
