Kicking and Saving

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1:39-42 (Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C)

Apparently encountering Jesus is a real kick. Just ask Elizabeth. He was already at it in utero, John was. Kicking. Goading. Getting sinners' attention — even his mother, old cousin Elizabeth. Whoever knew a baby could prepare the way of the Lord?

But crazier yet, whoever knew a baby could be the Lord? Jesus: God contained, limited, enveloped within Mary's womb. Immortal, invisible, God only wise. In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes. He's limited himself to a warm, wet place. He's wrapped himself up within a package of skin cells. He's hidden himself within our human hide.

The coming of the Lord Emmanuel, God With Us, is to ransom captive Israel, and his first step is to cut us open. His simple coming lays claim to all of creation as his own. He takes what is his, no matter how hard we grasp and claw at it as ours.

Whether floating in amniotic fluid, wriggling in swaddling clothes, or wrapped in his final shroud, he says, "Mine. All mine. Every last bit of it!" And it's a blow to the sinner's solar plexus. All our striving for something beyond ourselves, our doing for God is for naught. Our little plans and projects are now eviscerated. They lie empty and exposed. Elizabeth got off easy with a little taekwondo kick to her insides.

And though you know your life is lost and your salvation project is null and void, there's something that's so much easier to see now. In claiming it all for himself, Christ our Lord turns you to the only one who has the power to give you life and who promises to do it.

If he claims it all as his, that means even a hollow-hearted sinner such as you belongs to him. Now it's you who is wrapped, contained and ensconced. And not just in your own flesh, but in the heart of God. The baby Jesus, the boy Jesus in the Temple, the Jesus tossing the moneychangers on their ear, the risen Jesus revealing himself in the bread at Emmaus -- he swathes you within the very will of God.

Christ is put on you. You are enveloped in his comforter, gathered up in the Holy Spirit.

That's quite a kick.