And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” — Luke 2:10-12 (ESV)

Tired Bodies, Dependent Lives

As I compose these words in my head, I pray for the sick four-year old that is asleep in my arms and note that I carry in my body the kind of tiredness that one cannot simply sleep off. My bones ache. My muscles are taut. I am keenly aware of how dismissive the chronic realities of Cerebral Palsy can be of my aspirations for independence. I cannot measure up to my culture’s notions of an efficient life. I am immeasurably dependent upon the enduring grace of a patient spouse in order to be vocationally sound as a father.

Nonetheless, if particular notions of productivity and efficiency are unavoidable casualties of this disabled life,

Perhaps a more expansive, presence-driven notion of fidelity to Christ can be resurrected through a faithfully lived disabled life.

Stillness, Darkness, and Wonder

It is so dark and cold outside in December’s bleak mid-winter that the whole world, or at least my small corner of it, seems to court stillness. A stillness deeper than slumber. The kind of dark and still that clarifies why, as G. K. Chesterton reminds us in his book Orthodoxy, the perception of repetition ought not lead to the belief the sun rises and warms just because. On nights like this, the darkness outside our window, like the frailty of the bodies reclined within the house we call home, invite me to reflect.

To ponder the enduring and all sufficient love of God in remembering that the sun rises because God looks upon the great star and, at the appointed time, says to her, “do it again—rise”. Indeed, these pockets of stillness invite me into the practice of wonder—of marveling at God. These moments when I am made aware of the pervasive nature of my humanity and the world’s darkness, I am also invited to experience joy in the goodness of God’s unwavering, yet carefully calculated, nearness to creation.

Nearness, indeed, to me.

When God Feels Closest

God is certainly always present. Of course. However, there are moments on this side of eternity when, in God’s good grace, we can be more aware of God’s presence. These are the moments when, perhaps, one could say God seems particularly near.

In my experience this is most often perceived in seasons of darkness, pain, and dependence. The segments of this life that are the least sterile and the most unpredictable. By extension, then, life’s least efficient moments. Within, as it were, the rather constant rhythms of a life inseparable from being reminded that I am disabled. I am dependent on God and on others. In short, I am most aware of God’s nearness amidst realities that the world says one ought to expend considerable energy aiming to avoid.

God is most perceptibly close to me within the experiences that require the mythical veneer of self-sufficiency to fall. Indeed, for me, there is often a direct connection between the moments when God seems closest and the periods of time when I am most aware that I am a creature of need. That I am dependent. Like the sick child nestled dependently against me,

I am forever cradled within and dependent upon, the nail-scarred hands of the same God who entered the creaturely world He made as a consummately dependent baby.

The Miracle of Advent

I suspect this is part of the divine miracle of Advent. We wait for an all-sufficient God to enter the world as a human being. As such, this God-man is a God who is human, and in that humanity, needs perfectly whilst modeling for creation how to need.

What if this is central to more faithfully embracing life as a Christian in light of the good news of Christ? What if this is foundational to what it means to live in, through, and with, great joy?

The God Who Needed Everything

The God of the cosmos who has need of nothing came into God’s created world as one who needs everything. Down to the very need to be nursed, nurtured, protected, bathed, and changed.

By God’s grace, then, God saw fit to be, in Christ’s humanity, vulnerably dependent upon a young, poor, girl and her betrothed. Born in a cave under the cover of night in the small humble town of Bethlehem. Yes, announced by angels. Yet, not to those of means, public prestige, or privilege; rather to shepherds who would likely be dismissed in a judicial hearing or in any socially advantageous gathering. At a point in human history when political strife, division, corruption, and oppression are ripe.

Clearly, one could easily make a case for asserting that there were more efficient and productive ways for the King of the universe to demonstrate and personify God’s ministry of presence!

Good News of Great Joy

Unless, however, part of the good news is that the Advent of Christ is the Triune God inviting humanity to witness God modeling the fullness of what it means to be in right relationship with all of creation. To experience joy in needing God, one another, and the whole of creation. Not just in the life Christ led on earth, but in the way God came to earth

we are beckoned back to the joy of what it means to be rightly human—disabled and temporarily able-bodied alike!

A Prayer for Advent

May the mercy of God allow us to receive the Christ of Advent, and all God invites us into therein, as good news of great joy, indeed.