Pleased as Man with Men to Dwell

There are a million blogs and articles out there imploring Christians to remember the true meaning of Christmas; setting aside the shopping, decorations, and cooking to remember our savior’s birth. Putting “Christ back in Christ-mas” as the Facebook posts say. This is an important cause, but not exactly where I am going with this writing today.

Rather, I was struck by something tangential to this that I wanted to share. This prior week I have acutely felt what the “reason for the season” bloggers and meme-ers rail against. If the heart of Christ’s message is grace and selfless-ness, it really does feel like December can make people (religious and secular alike) do the absolute opposite. There is a desperation in the air; a need do YOUR thing to the exclusion of all others’. These desperate branches spring from good roots, such as extra time with family, gift-giving, and bringing joy to others. But it just calls to mind a bunch of hungry-hungry hippos keen to grab what they think is theirs. This occurred in an expected place last Saturday when I made the mistake of going to Target on a Saturday two weeks before Christmas. But it also manifested yesterday at my YMCA and Panera, two perhaps more unexpected places. People were angry and frustrated everywhere I walked. A gym can be an “oblivious” place at the best of times—people locked into their own exercise world—but it was a heightened mess of people seemingly worried that if they did not grab THIS dumbbell right now, it will never ever be available again. Or that they they had precisely 7 minutes and 22 seconds to get a workout in before their daughter’s basketball game was over; you holding 50 lbs. over your nose be damned. I felt and contributed to this tension I am sure. At Panera, the tension was somehow worse. There was honking and flipping off and customers snide comments about how long they were waiting and whether they are expected to the ordering kiosk.

You don’t need to hear all this—I you’ve seen it. But it is table setting for my headspace yesterday: 1. People are terrible and 2. Isn’t it sad that “the most wonderful time of the year” brings this out in us? On the way home, Amy Grant’s rendition of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing came on. I already don’t recall if I selected it or if it just came on amidst a Christmas Spotify playlist. Its a really great version of one of my and many’s favorite Christmas songs. In listening this time, however, I was struck by something new. The desperation, selfishness, and “hurry” we acutely feel in December is a microcosm of the story of people. We are these people all year long, it is only accentuated in the darkest month when we have the light of Christ (or merely the joy the lights of Christmas) as a contrast. That is the why a stanza like this is so striking:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate deity
Pleased as man with men to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Pleased as man with men to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel

It is really astonishing when you think about it. God became one of us and lived with us. We usually think of this as a great thing—it is!—and a message of Christmas is to cherish this gift. Lots of songs (including this one) emphasize the grandeur and royalty of Christ coming to Earth. But pardon my sacrilege, it was a dumb thing for God to do! We suck! Why would you want to be “veiled in flesh”? Our bodies decay and fail us and our minds are tuned to unkindness and protecting our earthy possessions. “Pleased as man with men to dwell?” I vigorously flipped a senior citizen woman off in Panera’s parking lot over a miscommunication. I was visibly frustrated with the crowd of parents who had the audacity to block my exit from the YMCA because they were watching their children swim. In my hubris, I like to think of myself as especially kind, or considerate, or giving. But I am a dark selfish human like any other. I don’t want to dwell with me, much less should the son of God. But he is pleased to do so! And through that seemingly irrational choice, “mild He lays his glory by,” we are brought light and life. We are “[r]isen with healing in his wings.”

If you are a Christian, I hope you take a moment to let this sit on your heart and mind a little bit today. I hope it calms your anxiousness, frustration, and desperation. We see the darkness in and around us and we try to remember to turn toward the light. It took something pure and unstained by this world, to come into it and give us peace and hope. If you’re not a Christian, I hope you find your own light and life this Christmas (and I am surprised and thankful you made it this far in such an overtly religious blog). You don’t have to believe that the good things in this world are because of a generous loving Creator to seek and find them. I hope this holiday season can give us all that second birth we know we need.

Christ, the highest heaven adore
Christ, the everlasting Lord
Come, Desire of Nations, come
Fix in us Thy humble home
Come, Desire of Nations, come
Fix in us Thy humble home