Sunday Drive: O Little Town of Bethlehem

Advent IV

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. . . .
He hath shewed strength with his arm,
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he hath sent empty away. . . .



My favorite rendition of this song is by Emmylou Harris, which unfortunately I can't find on YouTube; but Sarah's version just might become a close second to it.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man. . . .

Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us
for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become
subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ,
your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature,
to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you,
the God and Father of all.

He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself,
in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

To live and die as one of us:  Well now, fellas, it really makes no nevermind to your Head Trucker what you choose to believe, as long as you obey the speed limit and keep your dog out of my yard.  At each stage in life, it seems to me, we believe what we need to believe; and like the chambered Nautilus, if we are wise and humble-hearted, our spiritual progress leads us on to ever more roomy mansions, though always circling round the divine mystery at the heart of things.

And of that central point toward which all converges, what can we say, what can we know for certain?  Very little.  Now your Head Trucker spent more than a few years digging through the Scriptures and sermons of Christianity for an answer to those questions; and though my excavations may not have gone as deep as those of some others, I am prepared to state categorically that the end of all our labors and all our cogitations upon the subject is but a handful of straw - as St. Thomas Aquinas put it, and his was a brain much greater than mine.

A very famous poem - well, it was once, though I doubt that any of you young'uns ever came across it in school, the times being so practical and unpoetical now - a very famous poem from the Victorian era, about "six blind men from Hindustan," expresses the problem of theological knowledge very nicely.  And then again, the wise Solomon declares: "of the making of many books there is no end, and the study thereof is a weariness to the flesh." For myself, I find that Keats sums up my view rather neatly:  "I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not - " Here, it may be that the young poet spoke more profoundly than he knew.

Believe what you will - and then "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God" - "love your neighbor as yourself" - "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."  That covers the outward expression of religion.  And yet we do not "live by bread alone" - our souls, as our bodies, must be fed too; the inner man needs nourishment as does the outer man.  Where shall we turn for spiritual sustenance, then?  Some find it in Nature - "my heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky."  Some in works of imagination or poetry, some in great works of art.  And some in philosophy or mythology or Scripture.  Sometimes we even find it in the face or the body of another human being; for that truth we all seek is Love, and Love is to be found everywhere:  in all things and through all things, if we have eyes to see.


Here I will share something that nourishes my soul and brings me comfort - if it helps you too, that's fine, and if not, then find something that does - and that is the immense mystery, the profound story of the Incarnation:  the Word made flesh, truly God and truly man.  A story not of power and glory, but of utter failure and suffering and humility; and for that very reason, a grand story - the greatest.

I cannot claim to have made a study of world religions, though I have come across a beautiful insight here and there.  What I can say is that I have yet to find a description of God - the ultimate Goodness, the height and depth and end of all our searching - that moves me as deeply as this story does.  Understand that here I am not talking about true and untrue, correct and incorrect - no, I'm talking about something no theological disputation can ever settle or assure:  the intuitive glimpse of the Love that lies at the heart of all things, that moves the stars, that is the ground of being.
 
For "Love is patient, love is kind - love is humble, does not put on airs."  Does it not follow, then, that the Supreme Love would be supremely humble, also?  Nowhere in my (admittedly casual) reading of other religions have I found an example of a God so loving that He would put aside his own divinity - to live and die as one of us - us men, us women, us fragile creatures of a day - so humble that He would descend from the heights of celestial glory to put on this mortal coil, to inhabit as we do this bag of bones and blood, so easily broken, so easily crushed.
 
The story is not at all what one would expect:  the Lord of Hosts, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father - born to a poor working-class couple, and not even in the relative comfort of their small-town home; nor even in a rented room; but in the squalor of a stable.  You fellas who never scraped manure out of a barn should stop a minute right here and just imagine the smell.  And no crib for a bed - but laid in a cattle trough, with perhaps a little clean straw, if any could be found, as a cushion.  A humbler beginning can hardly be imagined:  a quiet, obscure, unnoticed life in a little redneck town, miles from nowhere.  No great deeds to be performed, none expected:  just another barefoot, small-town kid, growing up in the sticks, learning his father's trade, no hope of anything bigger or better.  A tiny life; nothing glorious at all.
 
And then of course, to look at the other end of the story:  after doing great good for many people - to find all faces turned against him, and every door closed - despised and rejected of men - proclaimed a most wicked sinner, an evildoer, a heretic and blasphemer by the highest religious authorities - hunted down by the government - betrayed by a close friend turned police spy - deserted at the hour of his greatest need, abandoned by all who said they loved him - left alone, utterly alone - praying to God, begging God for help, for mercy, for a way out.  But there was no way out:  to live and die as one of us, in pain, in agony, in tears and sweat and blood.  Alone.  Friendless.  Helpless.
 
What kind of God is this?  Certainly not one I would ever have dreamed up.  Nor you either, I imagine.
 
From obscurity to degradation; from poverty to brutal death:  to live and die as one of us.
 
Yet how better could Love demonstrate itself than to do just that?
 
And of course, Christians believe the story did not end at the silent, bloodstained tomb - that the Story really only began right there.  But that, you can look up for yourself.
 
"There are some things worth believing even if they aren't true."  A line from a very good movie, which I recommend very heartily to you all if you want to know how a man should live and think:  Secondhand Lions, with Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. 
 
I'm not here suggesting that you have to believe this Christmas story as gospel truth; that's entirely up to you, my friends.  But considered purely as a story, is it not a wonderful thing?  I'm just sharing with you what I like to think is the holiness of my heart's affections:  a belief in a God who is not too proud to stoop to the muddy, bloody level of humanity.  A God with mud on his boots and dust on his face, born in a barn, not a palace.  A God who cares deeply about the poor and the hungry, the humble and the meek, the obscure and the frustrated and the friendless, and all the smelly, lonely shitkickers of the world:  because He was one of them, Himself.  Whether it strikes a chord in you or not, I find it a great comfort to believe in a God who is intimately acquainted with all the losses and hurts, the griefs and irremediable pains of my own life - because He has already suffered all of them, Himself.
 
There are many other lovely stories in the world, and some of them are also deeply moving, very profound.  This is the one, though, that touches my heart the most - and gives me hope that even though human life is ultimately too short, too bitter, and too cruel, and my own, like many another, is so small, so meager, so obscure and apparently so pointless - that yet, against all hope, beyond all knowing or imagining:  "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
 
And that - not Santa Claus, not sleigh bells, not reindeer, not ribbons - is what Christmas means to me:  "Love came down from heaven - " to live and die as one of us.  I hope all of you, my Truckbuddies, in this holiday season - whichever holiday you celebrate - that you also discover a story, a Love, that fills and warms and comforts your heart, as this one does mine.
 
Merry Christmas.