In the midst of fleas and throw-up: thoughts on the incarnation

In the last few years, I have become undeniable aware of the messiness of human life.  I am the mother of two small children, and if living with several animals wasn’t enough to find the nitty-gritty of life, little kids bring the message right on home.  I mean the literal messiness of life, here.  I mean the snot, the puke, the pee, the poop, the dirt, the fleas of every-day human life.  One or the other of the creatures I care for is usually covered in something sticky and I don’t really ask questions about what it is.  There’s nothing new to this at all; I am just newly and constantly aware of it.  Given a recent batch of infestation and illness of my messy little charges (human and canine), I joke that I am just trying to keep my sense of humor in the midst of fleas and throw-up.

Modern humans try very hard to be civilized.  We scrub, shave and spray away the dirt, hair and stink of regular people.  We teach manners, hygiene and grooming and we expect fellow citizens to follow our customs.  When we go out in public, we are presentable and we hide the nitty-gritty of our existence.  But, it still shows through, especially when we’re around little kids and even more with adorable little babies.  Babies seem to hold (and spew at inopportune times) more bodily fluids than their tiny frames can hold.  Human life begins in mess and indignity.

So, thinking about the mess, the profane of daily human existence, brings me to thinking of the Incarnation.  The Holy Word of God became human, fully human, not some handsome super-hero with x-ray vision who could fly and was impervious to illness.  Jesus showed up as a messy, blood-covered, screaming, snotty, human baby, right in the midst of fleas and throw-up. That mess and indignity is where the miracle happens.  

Easter is the big show of Christianity, the extravaganza of the resurrection, the festival of the dying and rising God.  I came back to Christianity because of Easter.  It was Easter that lured me into church again; the idea of a god who gave up his life to save me, the idea of dying to my old life and starting anew.  That is what brought me through the doors of an Episcopal church during Lent.  I wanted the extravaganza, the passion, the whole enchilada.  

As in life, the unbearable grief and unbelievable triumph of the death and life overshadow the daily mess.  This coming Christmas season, I find an even more personal, messier, less glorious miracle in the incarnation.  The miracle of the Holy Word of God becoming human, with all the ordinary trappings of human life.  

Before Jesus could be the sacrament, before he could show us the power of forgiveness, before he could embody the love of God defeating death, he had to be a dirty, smelly, personal human.  He had to become regular person, dealing with family squabbles, jealousy, hunger, temptation, fear, frustration, and daily indignity.  To imagine the Word of God in that indignity, that profane, mundane existence--that is scandalous and ridiculous.  Frederick Buechner says, “The incarnation is "a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken.”

Are we scandalized enough by Christmas?  Are we scandalized enough that God himself became a helpless baby, born into the dirt, mess and pain of human life? Something absolutely holy and wondrous became part of the ordinary. In the daily mess of life, Jesus came to the world; the Holy Word made flesh in the midst of fleas and throw-up.