The Proverbs 365 project has now completed its course.

We have succeeded in cataloguing 365 distinct and separate entries -- short stories, essays, poems, and personal anecdotes -- about 365 distinct and separate proverbs of King Solomon.  Some of the entries are certainly rougher than others, but we're hoping to have time to smooth things out a bit further and develop plans for further publication, as soon as possible.

If you've been a part of this journey through the Proverbs, thank you for the energy that you've brought into the process.  Any feedback that you might have would be welcomed (eagerly accepted, thankfully received, and indeed highly sought after!) -- however, with this post we are now officially planning to re-route communication back through EricAsp.com.  For the time being, the content from Proverbs 365 will remain intact, here at http://proverbs365.ericasp.com -- but I could easily imagine that there will come a time when this space from the website will be reallocated for other purposes.  As much as possible, I will do my best to inform you about any of these changes ahead of time.

Again, thank you for your interest in the Proverbs 365 project.  I'll never forget the year that I spent soaking in the wisdom of the Proverbs... And I hope that in some small way, the same might be true for anyone else who was along for the ride.

[A wife of noble character] sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks (Proverbs 31:17).

The "Proverbs 31 Woman" is an intriguing concept.  Much has been written about her already:  almost all of it positive.  Even so, I still know a number of women who resist the mantle and model of the Proverbs 31 Woman.

Why is this?  Perhaps it's because the Proverbs 31 Woman has become something of a catch-all for our ideals of womanhood, which can feel at turns limiting, and at turns impossible to live up to... Perhaps it's because of patriarchal overtones embedded within the story of the Proverbs 31 Woman -- that is, the chapter speaks of her primary sphere of influence being the home, and she plays a bit of a traditional support role to her husband... Perhaps it's because she's called a "wife" before she's called a person (v. 10), because she provides food for her family (v. 15), because she does a lot of sewing and weaving (v. 19), and in essence she is linked to so many of those things that has come to be associated with weakness and subservience in our cultural context -- and of course, no reasonable woman wants to be labeled as weak or subservient.

This is where I think that Proverbs 31:17 is a very important part of defining the Proverbs 31 Woman.  This verse reminds us that of all the things that the Proverbs 31 Woman may or may not be, we are to make no mistake:  the Proverbs 31 Woman is hard-core, bad-ass, tough-as-nails, weaker-than-nobody, intrinsically-subservient-to-none.

In fact, she sets about her work vigorously.  Her arms are strong for her tasks.  She's not passive, or weak, subservient in the least.  For a more extensive treatment of the strengths (in contrast to the oft-presumed weaknesses) of the Proverbs 31 Woman, I would highly recommend a look at the writings of Amber Van Schooneveld, who blogs at Clever Phrase Here.  "Biblical Feminism" might be too strong of a phrasing, but she provides a point of view that feels refreshingly balanced, in my opinion.  A perspective worth analyzing, in any event.  As for me, personally, I just want to say that the Proverbs 31 Woman seems like an extremely admirable person, not just an extremely admirable woman.  Even I, as a man, can look up to her strength and resourcefulness.  In fact, if I read the descriptions from Proverbs 31:17 -- praising the Proverbs 31 Woman's vigor and upper-body strength -- I think I would be a little bit intimidated to be a "bad guy" running into this biblical super-hero in some dark alleyway.

If nothing else, I think the Proverbs 31 Woman is a valuable tool for dialogue.  It brings up expectations, ideals, anxieties, and insecurities; and it gives us a forum for interacting with each other about these things.  I hope that we can all feel free to vigorously debate these issues over an extended period of time... But if it ever gets down to arm-wrestling over it, I certainly don't want to be one who has to go up against a Proverbs 31 Woman.

Do not slander a servant to his master, or he will curse you, and you will pay for it (Proverbs 30:10).

I spend entirely too much of my prayer time whining to God.  Specifically, I notice that I spend too much time griping to God about other people:  how much they bother me, how much they make my life more difficult, how much I wish they'd just go away and get out of my life.  Basically, it occurs to me that I enter into prayer with the assumption that I am a good and righteous person -- and that everything would just be fine, if other people could get their crap taken care of and let me get in with my own life.  I'm good at making it sound all spiritual and godly and stuff:  "Lord, please bless Johnny So-and-So, even though he's creating so many difficulties for me right now... Lord, I just know that there's got to be some serious pain in Sally Whoziwhatsit's life -- so could you please heal that pain in her life so that we can all move on..."  But when you really break it down, it's glorified complaining and whining about other people.  And it's wrong.

Proverbs 30:10 reminds me a lot of Romans 14:1-4, where it says, "Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.  One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.  The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.  Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand."

Basically, these verses point to the fact that we are trying to position ourselves as someone else's master -- or boss, or superior, or authority -- when we judge their actions or attitudes as being "bad" or "wrong."  I (consciously or subconsciously) slander another person because it gives me a higher moral ranking, relatively speaking.  But the obvious problem with this is that I'm not the master / boss / supervisor / authority for other people's lives.  Even if I have some level of authority in another person's life (serving as their father or pastor or job supervisor), that doesn't mean that my authority stretches to all aspects of their existence.  Certainly not their personal relationship with God.  So when I try to judge someone else, or complain about someone else, or slander someone else (even if it's in my own "private" prayer life), then I'm positioning myself in a role that is not mine to play.  I'm putting myself in the place of God.  And it's impossible to put myself in the place of God without paying for it dearly at some point or another.

I love the simplicity of that question from Romans 14:3:  "Who are you to judge someone else's servant?"  The fact is that I need to look first and foremost to what God is doing in my life and not worry about others.  And even when my mind wanders, my mouth definitely shouldn't.  "Do not slander a servant to his master, or he will curse you, and you will pay for it."  When it all comes down to it, I need to mind my own business.

A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed -- without remedy (Proverbs 29:1).

I'm so glad to be down to my last three days in this Proverbs 365 project.  It's been a good experience, overall, but it's become exhausting -- particularly here through the home stretch, over the last month or so.  At times, it's felt like it's all I can do to just put one foot in front of the other and keep making progress, getting closer to the finish line.  Even if it's ugly.  As much as I've tried to keep things fresh and avoid making it feel this way, these little reflections on the Proverbs have recently become a sort of homework.  I do it out of a sense of obligation, not out of a desire to learn.  On a certain level, I've just resigned myself to this fact.  I tell myself:  "You can't quit now.  Who cares if the stuff that's coming out from day to day is total crap?  You've just got to get it finished at this point.  Bang out a first draft, and then all the crap can be reworked in the next draft.  Just finish what you've set out to do."

Suffice to say:  the calendar can be a cruel task-master.  Even though I entered into the situation willingly (and even eagerly), I've lately become a slave to the daily grind.  The same things happen in marriage, in ministry, in physical fitness, in financial management.  Even while I'm reading all this incredible material from one of my favorite books of the Bible, I'm tuning out just so I can get done what needs to get done.  Pathetic... but that's where I'm at.

Then I read Proverbs 29:1, which says, "A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed -- without remedy."  Immediately, I'm challenged to consider my situation and ask myself, "Am I being stiff-necked here in any way?"  I'm taking in all this wisdom day after day -- stuff that is truly life-giving, encouraging, and satisfying... but also truly challenging, confrontational, and unsettling.  But am I really digesting it?  Am I really processing it?  Am I really responding to the rebuke of the Proverbs?  Or am I just doing the bare minimum to find a little nugget of truth, write my obligatory 500 words about it, and then just get on with my day without internalizing the material in any meaningful way?!?  In essence:  am I remaining stiff-necked after many rebukes?

I think it's good for me to be afraid to answer these questions.  This verse is both reassuring and chilling.  It's reassuring to remember that God is deeply concerned about justice -- looking at people's hearts and making sure that no one will get away with anything (despite whatever contemporary appearances might seem to indicate).  But it's also challenging to remember that my momentary well-being is not necessarily a sign of my righteousness.  I need to continually renew myself, keeping a soft heart towards God.  I need to be flexible and willing to change, even when it's uncomfortable.  I need to listen to whatever rebukes God might send my way... Or else the consequences could be quite severe and quite permanent.

A greedy man stirs up dissension, but he who trusts in the LORD will prosper (Proverbs 28:25).

There is a significant theme of civic responsibility running throughout the 28th chapter of the Proverbs.  It talks about law, lawlessness, government, authority, obedience, disobedience, and citizenship (see v. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 21, 24, 25, and 28).  The Proverbs grant the fact that no one like a corrupt of evil authority over them (see v. 12, 15, and 28 especially) -- even so, the primary message of Proverbs 28 (and of the rest of the Bible, too) is that we must respect the authority that has been placed over us.

I never know exactly where the line is supposed to be drawn in a constitutional republic -- where the people are supposed to rule by means of representative democracy, but where lines of authority must be nonetheless established.  Certainly, there is a place for advocacy, at least to some extent.  Worshipping God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (i.e. Mark 12:30) ought to include worshipping God and trying to accomplish His purposes through our citizenship.  It's a natural extension of holistic worship to use our voice in the system to enact change when necessary.  Still, I wonder if we can sometimes take our privileges too far and end up fomenting rebellion instead of fulfilling our civic responsibilities.  I can at least speak for myself.  I like to cast myself in the role of "freedom fighter" -- standing up against tyranny and injustice, seeking to achieve some higher purpose -- but the truth of the matter is that I'm often more motivated by my own personal preferences and self-interests than anything else.  I'm concerned about the people who get elected into public office, not so much because of the ways that the policies they enact will affect society-at-large or because of posterity -- but more because I'm worried that their policies might impact my preferred way of living.  I'm concerned about the use of the money garnered from my taxes, not so much because of the social good or evil that's being furthered by those funds -- but more because I sure wish I had some more money to do things that I like to do.  If I'm being completely honest with myself, probably 80-90 percent of my issues with government are personal, not principled.

Because of this dynamic, I need to be careful about what I do with my democratic "right to dissent."  If I'm operating out of greed and selfish ambition, I'm not really "loving my neighbor" (i.e. considering the fact that a democracy should be constantly seeking to achieve the greatest good for the greatest percentage of the population) nor am I respecting the authority that has been placed in my life.  I'm not really living up to my civic responsibility, as outlined in Proverbs chapter 28.  And, perhaps most significantly, I'm not trusting God to take care of me.  In effect, I'm creating an idol out of public policy.

But if I can trust the LORD in every circumstance -- even in situations where I feel like the government is acting unfairly toward me and my interests -- then the Bible says that I can prosper, regardless of the outside influences.  Even if I were to find myself under the thumb of the world's most repressive regime, trusting in God would be more important than solving the governmental problems.  Whenever I can serve God and entrust Him with my anxieties, my quality of life goes up.  Conversely, whenever I try to seek my own good, I only end up creating dissatisfaction, distrust, disobedience, and dissension.  And a world full of dissension isn't really good for any of us.

Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him (Proverbs 27:22).

It was a Saturday afternoon in December, with cold winds howling outside the frosted windows of the old farmhouse that my girlfriend (now my wife) called home.  Christmas music was playing on the stereo.  Marci and her Mom and her sister were busy in the kitchen, mixing a batch of dough for their Lucia buns -- a Swedish holiday tradition -- and I was just standing in the passageway between the kitchen and the dining room, watching.

In between measuring, mixing, and chopping, Marci looked up at me and said, "I know the perfect job for you, Eric."

Eager to please, I said, "Sure, what can I do?"

"You could grab that mortar and pestle from up there on the window-sill," she pointed at the window overlooking the front yard of the house, "and you could grind up some of this cardamom for us."

I had no idea what a mortar, a pestle, or cardamom was; still, I went over to the window-sill that Marci had indicated and started looking around.  There was a canister full of wooden cooking utensils -- spoons, spatulas, whisks, and such -- so I pulled out a rolling pin, which seemed like the only suitable instrument for grinding anything.  "Is this what you're talking about?"  I asked her.

"No, no," she smiled in the way you might humor a toddler.  "The mortar and pestle."  The walked over to the window-sill and picked up a stone bowl and a smaller, rounded, stone cylinder.  When Marci put the items into my hands, they were cold to the touch and surprisingly heavy.  They looked slightly familiar to me, like something from an old apothecary that I might see in a movie or theater production, but I had never used such tools before.  "Here, I'll get the cardamom and bring it out to you at the dining room table."  I was relieved that I wouldn't have to try and figure out the "cardamom" part of things, which was equally foreign to me as the mortar and pestle, either.

I selected a seat at the dining room table and sat down, placing the mortar and pestle on the table in front of me.  Marci came up beside me and placed a jar of small, dried, light-brown seed pods next to the mortar and pestle.  Sitting down close to me, she showed me how to pry open the little seed pods with my fingernails and deposit the tiny black kernals of cardamom into the bowl of the stone mortar.  Each seed pod produced just two or three kernals of the spice, so it took several minutes to develop a pile of two or three tablespoons worth of cardamom.  When she was satisfied that we had harvested enough cardamom, Marci picked up the stone pestle and showed me how to use it to crush the seeds in the bottom of the mortar.  She used a circular motion that combined pushing downwards and pushing outwards, toward the sides of the mortar.  The stone surfaces of the mortar and pestle grinded against each other with a sound that reminded me of the secret door to Batman's Bat Cave opening:  a sort of cool, stony resonance.  And then, Marci handed the pestle over to me and suggested that I give it a try.  She watched, provided a few pointers to improve my technique, and then left me to my work while she returned to the kitchen with her Mom and sister.

I enjoyed using the mortar and pestle.  A pleasant aroma lifted up from the chamber of the mortar, fresh-ground cardamom filling the air like a mug of hot chai tea.  The heaviness of the tiny pestle in my hand felt primal and powerful.  I felt proud to be doing something useful for Marci's family's holiday traditions.  After three or four minutes of grinding away at the cardamom with the mortar and pestle, I brought the mortar into the kitchen and asked, "Is this good enough?"

It wasn't.  I hadn't even come close to breaking down the cardamom adequately enough for the Lucia buns.  So Marci told me to go back to the dining room and do it some more.

After a few more minutes of continued grinding, the cardamom had been reduced even further to a coarse meal of gray spices.  I felt confident that my work was finished, so I went back to the kitchen -- but once again, I was told that I needed to keep grinding away at the cardamom with the mortar and pestle.  I grew tired of using the mortar and pestle.  The stones became warm.  The friction between the two stone surfaces started to feel like the grinding of my teeth.  Several more minutes of grinding, several more trips to the kitchen for inspection, I finally finished with the cardmom, getting it to the fine, powdery consistency that was necessary for baking.  I was surprised at how much work was required to let the mortar and pestle do their work.  They were ultimately effective with the cardamom, causing it to break down over time, removing the chaff from the seeds and reducing the substance to a usable form.  But it took a lot of work.  And I was glad that it would be at least another year before I had to try and use the mortar and pestle again.

Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own (Proverbs 26:17).

Northeast Tennessee is known for its tough territory -- right in the thick of the Appalachian Wilderness -- but even more than its tough territory, it's known for its even tougher men.  Daniel Boone and Andy Jackson and Zack Taylor (a.k.a old Rough and Ready) all hailed from this region at one point or another, and they were only a small sampling of the great men that Northeast Tennessee had produced.  The folks in those parts had forged their existence by beating back the Indians and taming the wilderness by all means necessary.  Even into modern times, there is a sense of adventure and austerity in the landscape, the air, the water, and especially in the faces of the men who call Northeast Tennessee their home.

Roger McKinley was not from those parts himself, but he had a high respect for the area's history even prior to his temporary relocation to the small hill-bound community of Plank Mountain, working as a surveyor for the state's Division of Geology.  He had heard stories about Northeast Tennessee and Northeast Tennesseans from his grandfather, a leathery old man who had grown up in the area.  And Roger had experienced the region's toughness for himself, carrying his surveying equipment through the hills and valleys, and casual encounters with people at local diners and gas stations.  Still, he wasn't prepared for what he would witness on his way to the post office on a warm Wednesday afternoon.

The post office was in a small building at the intersection of Main Street and Taylor Road, the centermost point in Plank Mountain.  In many ways, the post office served as the town's primary point of connection with the outside world -- envelopes and packages coming in and going out once a day -- but it was also the place where local news was shared from person to person through Fred Tuttlebaum, the town's postmaster.  Roger had interacted with Fred Tuttlebaum several times during his weeks in Plank Mountain, and he had been unnerved by several things about the old postmaster -- his penchant for dirty jokes, his raspy laughter, his long salt-and-pepper beard hanging down to the second button on his coveralls, his lazy left eye, and his love for singing along with country music songs on the radio.  But more than anything else, Roger had always been bothered by the postmaster's dog:  Sarge.  Sarge was a black and tan rottweiler, about the same size as the large blue, government-issue mailbox that he guarded.  He was a constant presence at the post office, whether he was sleeping or glaring out at visitors through his shiny, black eyes.  The postmaster acted as if Sarge was the cutest, cuddliest creature the world had ever known -- laughing and telling stories about the dog's antics in chasing squirrels or getting into the trash.  But even though Roger did his best to act natural and politely laugh at the anecdotes about the rottweiler, Roger felt like his very life was in danger whenever he was at the post office.  It seemed like Sarge distrusted Roger as some sort of out-of-towner.  When he would come in, the dog would snarl slightly, revealing teeth as big as the fingers on Roger's hand -- and until Fred barked out some kind of order in his indecipherable dialect, releasing Sarge from his antagonistic attitude, Roger found himself literally trembling.

"Sorry 'bout ol' Sarge.  He's jest curious.  Now what ken I do ya fer?" said Fred.

"Umm, well, I just need twenty stamps today," said Roger.  "Everything going all right here in town?"

"Yeah, well, y'know how it is 'ere in Plank Mountain.  Purty good, but always somethin' brewin'," said Fred, as he pulled the postage stamps out from the register.

"And what might be brewing today?" asked Roger.

"Thet right there," said Fred, pointing out the front door through which Roger had just entered the post office.  "John Crawlee and Vernon Merriwether are at it again."

Roger turned around and looked where the postmaster's hand was pointing.  And there, out in the middle of the town's main street, two large men in flannel shirts were wrapped up, arm in arm, struggling and pounding away at each other's backs with their fists.  For a brief moment, the two separated, and the larger of the two men landed a powerful punch square on the jaw of the smaller man, causing him to drop to the pavement.  With his foe down on the ground, the big guy threw himself down on top of him and started pounding him repeatedly with his fists.  Left, right, left, right... Blood sprayed off to the sides.  A small crowd of men, women, and children stared from the sides of the road.  It was a gruesome spectacle, man against man, reminiscent of the old frontier days.  Roger cringed inwardly, unsure of how such a scene was supposed to be processed.

"Shouldn't someone step in and try to break them up?" he asked.

The postmaster replied, "Naw, let 'em finish.  They're tusslin', and they jest gotta get it out.  Don't let Crawlee's size fool ya.  He's a scrapper.  It's a fair fight... so we jest better let 'em be."

Roger was incredulous.  "Are you serious?" he said.  "That smaller guy is getting creamed.  He's gonna get himself killed, isn't he?"  Roger certainly didn't want to get himself involved, but he felt like it was inhuman to just stand by and watch the violent encounter proceed unimpeded.

"Naw, he'll be fine.  Let 'em be, stranger."  Fred's face grew serious and confrontational.  "Y'hear me?  That ain't yer fight."  He paused and repeated it again for effect:  "It - ain't - yer - fight.  If you wanted ta try an' get in the way of their tusslin,' it'd be like grabbing ol' Sarge here by the ears and yankin' his head all around, jest fer the fun of it."  He reached down and petted the giant rottweiler with both hands, rubbing his ears in a friendly, almost-fatherly way.  "You could go an' give it a try if you wanted ta tussle with the tiger."  He rasped and laughed at his own joke, and Sarge looked up at his master with eyes of expectation and excitement.  He acted as if he expected to receive a treat.  Roger had to wonder if the dog was thinking about treats made out of tiny, bite-sized pieces of Roger.

"Uh, no thanks," said Roger.  "No thanks."

Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and do not claim a place among great men; it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here," than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman (Proverbs 25:6-7).

The stars are bright and brilliant, piercing through the blackness on a silent night in quaint and quiet Bethlehem. On the pleasantly obscure outskirts of this pleasantly obscure village, the golden glow of a lantern illuminates a cozy stable where a miracle has just taken place. A chubby-cheeked, rosy-complexioned, soft and innocent baby boy named Jesus -- the newborn King of Kings and Lord of Lords -- is sleeping peacefully among a circle of curious livestock, adoring shepherds, solemn Eastern nobility, and his satisfied young parents. The sweet fragrance of myrrh and frankincense is mixed with the earthy scent of fresh hay, and hushed voices blend with the soft bleating of wooly little lambs to create an atmosphere of perfect awe and reverence... Certainly, the sight of this sweet child lying in a manger is a humble image -- yet, paradoxically, it is a humble majesty that bows the hearts of everyone in the tiny stable. Inexplicably, yet undeniably, the scene invokes a feeling of warmth, wonder, joy, fulfillment, and the peace that passes all understanding.

This is what we celebrate when we speak of the "incarnation," is it not? From the Latin word, “incarnatio,” the term refers to the birth of Jesus -- God’s one and only son “becoming in flesh” to join the ranks of the created world for a redemptive mission: to bring peace and good will to all mankind... Mysterious and wondrous, the concept of incarnation stirs our hearts at the recognition of the miracle recorded in the Gospel of John in which "the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."

That notwithstanding, I believe the common understanding of the incarnation is ill-defined, illogical, and incomplete.

I am not a linguist. I am not a theologian. I freely confess that I cannot read or write Latin, nor have I studied doctrinal terminology from any kind of academic perspective. Still, I have reason to believe that we are missing some of the crude nuances of the term, “incarnation.” My tourist/restaurant-menu-reading fluency in the Latin languages tells me that “incarnatio” does not merely indicate something “becoming in flesh” -- though I’m certainly not knowledgeable enough to declare this standard definition patently incorrect. All I know is that when I order Italian food or Spanish food or Mexican food, I’ve gleaned that the word “carne” simply means “meat.” My familiarity with the Italian and Spanish holiday greetings of “Buon Natale” and “Feliz Navidad,” offer a further clue in translation, presuming that “natale” and “navidad” are related to the English word “nativity” (or “birth”) -- all of which seem curiously similar to the “natio” part of “incarnatio.” And finally figuring in a basic understanding of the Latin-derivative prefix of “in” (which abounds in practically every language with which I’m familiar), a simple syllogism would indicate that “incarnatio” could be irreverently translated as “birth into meat.”

Thus, a further syllogistic rendering of that classic quote from the apostle John could be proposed as “The Spirit-Creator of the Universe became Meat and assumed a place on the space-time continuum among our ignorant and ignoble race.” Alas, the words just fill one with a sense of awe and wonder, don’t they? That true Christmas miracle of the Almighty-turned-Meat...

But to be honest, this definition of the incarnation seems to strike closer to the original Bethlehem scene, when envisioned from a more practical perspective. Perhaps our classic Christmas story needs to be re-written...

It is, in fact, an incredibly dark night. Small, cold white pin-pricks of starlight offer the only interruption to the fearsome and fathomless blackness over the insignificant provincial back-country of colonial Judea. The skies overhead seem mostly clear, but there are dark clouds on the horizon.

An uneasy peace trembles in these times of oppression and foreign domination; in fact, the residents of miniscule Bethlehem will be saddened -- though certainly not surprised -- to see this tenuous peace transformed into a horrifying blood-bath within the coming months. Poorly understood but unmistakably recognized, the advance whisperings of revolutions and coups have already caused the powers of the world to begin squirming and squabbling out of fear and self-preservation. Many innocent men, women, and children will soon be sacrificed under the banner of power consolidation, and the bizarre events unfolding this evening seem to merely foreshadow coming troubles...

In the putrid alleyways off the main thoroughfares of Bethlehem, grunts and screams in the darkness give way to the higher-pitched scream of a newborn baby. Instantaneously, inexperienced parents have been inaugurated out of scared teen-agers who hardly even know each other -- their relationship complicated by the social stigma of pre-marital conception. In the weak light and deep shadows of a derelict animal shelter, the young parents stare dumbfounded at the purple body of “their” son, covered in mucous and blood, slimy black hair curling around his cone-shaped head. Not long after the end of labor, strange and surreal visitors begin call upon the young family in the small stable, interrupting this time of intense familial privacy -- poor, dirty, overeager shepherds from the surrounding hill country, elbowing each other and grinning stupidly as if sharing an inside joke; proud foreign dignitaries speaking broken Aramaic and privately babbling in an unknown language amongst themselves. Bleating and braying livestock add to the cacophony, and the senses are overwhelmed by the horrible stench of too many camels, donkeys, and sheep crammed into this overcrowded stable of this overcrowded inn of this overcrowded town... It’s almost too much to take it all in: the fear, the uncertainty, the anxiety -- perhaps a sense of disappointment in this skewed “fulfillment of God’s plan,” or possibly even horror at the anti-climactic comprehension of what has just happened.

Indeed, the Spirit-Creator of the Universe has become Meat and assumed a place on the space-time continuum among an ignorant and evil race. A pitiable lump of flesh and blood that only knows how to scream and cry to communicate its hunger every two or three hours -- all throughout the day, and all throughout the night... Yes, there is beauty and joy in this situation -- as any parent can recall from the hours and weeks following the birth of a child -- but there is also much fear, fragility, and fatigue in caring for such a scrawny new life.

Without a doubt, such an incarnation is a humble event. Yet for the LORD-Yahweh -- El-Shaddai, Adonai -- incarnation is not just humility... Incarnation is humiliation. The Almighty Lord of Heaven and Earth drawing sustenance from the breast of a simple peasant woman, struggling to flail uncoordinated muscles, soiling himself and needing an adult to wipe his bottom for him... It’s an embarrassment. Pausing to carefully consider the realities of the “Word becoming Meat” to live among His people allows for an image that is astonishingly brutal. Feelings of warmth, wonder, joy, fulfillment, and peace become hardly the most natural human responses to such an understanding of the events surrounding the incarnation.

Nevertheless, contrary to logical reasoning -- instead of the ignoble aspects of Jesus' birth diminishing the beauty and significance of the incarnation -- such an understanding of the incarnation actually adds immeasurable value and creates a deeper appreciation for exactly what happened on that day that the Word became Meat and made his dwelling among us. As each man and woman experiences life in this broken and ugly world, the incarnation helps to provide consolation and navigation through the evils of the world, as we follow the originally incarnated one. Even as spiritually-reborn sons and daughters of God, we all experience vulnerability, suffering, calamity, and disenchantment as people living as strangers in this world. And in view of the original incarnation, our “light and momentary troubles” no longer seem so ignoble or demeaning. In fact, they are an opportunity for identification and conformation to the image of Jesus.

Furthermore, a more complete understanding of the incarnation gives us a more complete appreciation for God Himself. Reducing the birth of Jesus to a happy, golden postcard image diminishes the miraculous leap over the incredible chasm between us and God -- cheapens it, tarnishes it. The extreme gap between our world’s brokenness and ugliness and God’s glory and beauty, which God’s Son was compelled to experience, is so much greater than we could ever understand. Consequently, a deeper appreciation for the incarnation -- in all its brutality -- helps us to grasp just how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ… An absolutely amazing gift of grace.

So the mystery of the incarnation is a paradox indeed. Personally, I think if I were there at the scene of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, I probably would have been more prone to gag than to adore, more likely to cry than to smile... Yet as I consider the scene from the vantage point of history, I am indeed drawn into a spirit of perfect awe and reverence. My heart is bowed by the humiliating majesty of Jesus’ birth. And inexplicably -- yet undeniably -- reflection upon the incarnation stirs a feeling of warmth, wonder, joy, fulfillment, and the peace that passes all understanding.