“Frank and Nikki
sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First
comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”
This old children’s rhyme bespeaks a bygone era when it was
widely assumed that families are created in predictable ways—following a recognizable
sequence of events: courtship,
marriage, parenthood.
Although the biblical witness assumes, more or less, this ordering
of domestic life, the pages of the Bible are replete with variations from the
norm—nowhere as vividly as in the Nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke.
Hearing these well-worn texts again this
Advent-Christmastide, I’ve been struck by the awkwardness of it all, as the Holy
Spirit visits Mary and Joseph to clue them into the mysterious workings of God.
When Gabriel surprises young Mary with news that she is to
become a mother, she blurts out the obvious question: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke
1:34)
Awkward!
This awkwardness is compounded for Joseph, who learns of Mary's delicate condition along with the rest of her gossipy neighbors: “When…Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but
before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy
Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18)
Awkward!
Having resolved to end their engagement quietly, Joseph
receives in a dream his own angelic marching orders: “‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to
take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 1:20)
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby
carriage. That may be the customary
order of things, the conventional sequence in ordinary times….but with the
birth of Jesus, all of that is upended, because God is afoot, messing with Mary
and Joseph, disrupting their lives and in so doing intervening in “business as
usual” across the whole world.
Which is precisely
the point. Ordinary time has been
eclipsed by extraordinary time. Mary’s
pregnancy, with its mysterious interweaving of divine and human DNA signals the
end of business-as-usual.
If all of that seems jarringly awkward, we dare not be
surprised. Awkwardness goes with the
territory when Incarnation (God becoming enfleshed) is happening.
Awkwardness is about more than momentary embarrassment or annoying
discomfort. Derived from the Middle
English word awkeward, “in the wrong direction,” (from awke “turned the wrong
way”) awkwardness signals a reversal of course.
And precisely that is what unfolds in Bethlehem’s manger: a
blessed reordering of the whole fallen creation. Where sin, death and the devil have held
sway…a new dawn breaks forth with gifts of faith, resurrection and God’s own
never-ending Reign “on earth as it is in heaven.”
“Almighty God, you gave us your only Son to take on our
human nature and illumine the world with your light. By your grace adopt us as your children and
enlighten us with your Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Redeemer and Lord, who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship, collect for the Nativity of our Lord, p.
20)