Scripture text: John 1:1-18
As many of you saw on Christmas Eve, I’ve been struggling with some back and leg pain from sciatica. I had to do the Christmas service sitting down for the most part. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t go away overnight (Still hasn’t entirely.) I spent much of my Christmas visit with my family in WV in seated position as well, which produced a small problem when my mother was insistent that she play the part of the dutiful grandmother to Emily on Dec 26. She wanted to take all of us, but most especially Emily, shopping.
What to do about me? Well, a joke was made about digging out my late grandfather’s old wheelchair and using it. I took it seriously. Why not? It would let me tag along. So I spent several hours that day wheeling about the mall and learning a small bit about what it means to live like that. I can’t say I have a complete picture of what life is like for someone differently-abled, but I did learn a thing or two. I discovered how tricky simple tasks like opening doors can be. I saw the looks on people’s faces, how children suddenly seemed to love me and how most adults just ignored me. It was interesting, a true learning experience.
Image from Wikihow
We’ve all heard the old saying that if you’re going to judge someone, you should first walk a mile in his shoes. Now, of course, as Christians, we should really not be standing in judgment over other people (That’s God’s prerogative, after all). But human nature being what it is, it is probably better for us when we do judge to try to figure out what’s going on behind a person’s or a group’s actions and motives. What is their life really like? What is it that makes them do what they do? Why do they think the way they do? What sort of circumstances, experiences, and situations have informed their opinions and behaviors?
Unfortunately, those questions are almost never asked. It takes too long. It takes too much energy. We almost always presume that other people have the exact same sort of lives that we have. The same sort of experiences. The same allotment of resources and gifts. The same...well, pretty much everything. And yet, we should know better. Even the most basic application of logic and reason should tell us that we’re all different, but we almost never go there.
For instance, there was a lot of eye-rolling going on some weeks ago when Donald Trump was speaking about his business history. He mentioned to a crowd of his supporters that he had some help along the way; his father gave him a small loan to get started in the business world. A small loan, really small: just a million dollars. Small.
Or how about our esteemed senators in congress? Those who say that $150,000 a year salary is simply not enough to live on.
We laugh at and mock these sorts of statements and opinions because it is clear that these people don’t get it. They have no idea what it means to be like us. To be like you or like me. But what we don’t realize is that any of us who have a bit of fortune or privilege in life can be just as blind when we’re talking about those who’ve not been so lucky.
Men telling women there isn’t a problem with rape culture or misogyny on the Internet or a pay gap in the workplace. Yeah, like we men know what it’s like to be a woman. White folk telling black people how to fix all their problems. It be so easy. Racism isn’t real. We white folk, we said so. We know. We white folk know exactly what it’s like to be black.
Except we don’t. We don’t any more of a clue about their lives than those millionaires and billionaires have about us. Honestly, do we really understand what it’s like to live in the ghetto, caught between criminals on one side and often suspicious (or hostile) law enforcement on the other? Do we understand what it’s like to be thought of as a criminal in everything we do just because our skin is darker? Can we honestly claim that we know what that’s like?
Or do we know what it’s like to have our homes bombed? Our businesses destroyed. Our families killed. Do we know what it’s like to flee the horror of war as a refugee to strange land with alien customs and language? Do we know what it’s like to run away knowing we might never see our home again? Do we have any clue what that is like?
Do we know what it’s like to live in grueling poverty in the Third World? To live in garbage, to drink sewage, and to be under constant threat from corrupt governments or criminal cartels? Do we know what it’s like to run away from all that to a land that claims among its ideals to be a land of opportunity for all people, only to be looked down upon as a parasite? To be forced into slave labor jobs, ever fearful that someone might catch you and send you back into that nightmare you fled from? Do we know what that’s like? Can we claim we understand what it means to come to this country as an illegal immigrant? Do we know?
No, none of us have a clue. Their experiences, their behaviors, their circumstances are as alien to us as all the space monsters in every sci-fi story ever written. We can’t know, because none of us have ever been through any of that. We’ve been fortunate, living as we have as white Christian Americans of reasonable (if not exceptional) means. We’ve dodged all those bullets.
I bring all this up because this is really the problem the Incarnation is meant to solve. We talk about God being “all-knowing,” but as I’ve pointed out there is a big difference between knowing something because we’ve read about it in a book or a newspaper and knowing something because we lived through it. Therefore, in order to understand humanity, God had become one of us.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...
All the highs and lows of the human experience were now his to live. The good and the bad. Jesus knows the pride of hearing a parent’s praise. He knows the pain of stubbing your toe or scraping your knee because you fell down. I imagine he fell down...a lot as a toddler, just like all of us did.
He knows the pleasure of friendship with his disciples and with Lazarus and Mary and Martha. He also knows heartache in the death of Lazarus or the betrayal of Judas or the denial of Peter. He knows the joy of success when the crowds flock to him by the thousands and he knows the frustration of failure when the Pharisees just won’t listen.
He knows feast and fun, at the dinner table with friends, at the wedding at Cana. And he knows famine and suffering, in the wilderness temptation and, of course, on the cross. He knows life and he knows death.
He went through it all. Just like we do. Just like you did. Just like I did. All the width and breadth of the human experience, Jesus went through.
We have this tendency to think of God as being up there, cozy in some far-away heaven. But the Jesus experience proves that God truly is down here in the muck and the mire with us. He knows what it’s like to be us. To hurt. To laugh. To cry. To rage. All of it. God is not detached or disinterested from our lives. He’s lived our life. He became human so he could learn what it means to be us.
He wanted that. He wanted and continues to want to be that close to us. To be where we are, in the midst of our lives. To give a fist pump when we triumph or to pull us into his arms when things go south. He loves us and when you love something you don’t want to be far away. You want to be right there.
Well, God’s right here. He came among us. He lived among us. He died among us. And because he rose again, he will be among us forever. Amen.
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