Reflection by Spencer Musick
In the extremely mediocre 2006 comedy film Talladega Nights, there is a scene where the main character named Ricky (played by Will Farrell) is saying grace before dinner. He peculiarly addresses his prayer to “the dear Lord baby Jesus” prompting his wife to interject and admonish him that “Jesus did grow up, you know. He had a beard.” What makes this scene stand out in an otherwise pretty forgettable movie is the juvenile nature of Ricky’s conception of Jesus. He responds to his wife that “he likes the baby Jesus the best,” and so he wants to keep praying to him. I am often confronted with the fact that many adult Christians, while meaning well, would benefit from growing from a more juvenile conception of what Advent and the Incarnation are all about to a more theologically formed one.
To be sure, this image of the infant Christ is one of great importance to the larger story of Christ’s life and ministry. It reminds us that Christ took on human form and shared every bit of vulnerability and humanity that you and I experience. It is an especially useful tool in teaching the younger members of the Christian community about God’s closeness to us and care for us as expressed in the gift of Jesus. But while it is *an* important part of the story, it is *not* the most important part of the story.
Nor is the *historical event* of the Incarnation what we are really preparing for or awaiting in this season of Advent. We are preparing for and anticipating God breaking into the creation, and this is something that (at one and the same time) is both past, present, and future. God *has* broken into the creation in the person of Jesus. God continually breaks into the creation through the work of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s body on earth now, which is the universal church. And God *will* one day decisively break into the creation and tear down the boundary between heaven and earth, reordering and perfecting everything. This is what Advent and the Incarnation are all about.
So as the kids at COGS reenact the events surrounding Christ’s birth for us this Sunday, let us remember what exactly it is we are celebrating. We not just observing and remembering a historical event. We are rejoicing that God’s love for the creation and His people remains every bit as incessant and unstoppable *now* as it was at the moment when Christ’s earthly life began.
Prayer (taken from the 1979 Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer, for the First Sunday of Advent)
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.