I haven’t seen The Nativity movie yet, although I plan to see it. Maybe that movie brings home the truth of this essay for some of you this Christmas.

Re-posted from Christmas Eve, 2005:

I was thinking this afternoon about nursing, as in breastfeeding, as in feeding a baby. And I had the startling (to me) thought that Mary actually put Baby Jesus, not a doll, to her breast and fed him, fed him milk. Then I remembered that before she did that, she delivered him in the normal, messy, bloody way in a stable without a doctor or an epidural or even a nurse holding her hand and reminding her to push. She wrapped the God-baby in clothes and laid him in a feedbox and sat down or lay down in the hay on the floor beside him to rest. Joseph probably cleaned up, swept, maybe tried to find some water to wash things up a little.

It’s all a little too . . . physical, isn’t it? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The “Word” part gives me a little distance, a little spirituality, but the rest of the verse gets all fleshy again. Dwelt among us implies He lived a typically human life, ate and drank, bled when he cut himself, relieved himself, itched, scratched, slept, maybe snored. What an impossible thing to believe in. I actually believe that the God of the Universe, the God who created the Universe, who rules it, confined himself first to a human womb, then to a human body, then to death and a tomb. At least I believe it when I don’t think about it too much. When I do ponder the physicality of it all, it seems impossible.

I saw the Narnia movie this afternoon, and I noticed that twice the characters used the word “impossible.” As the children enter Narnia together, Susan experiences the coldness of the snow and the branches scratching her and breathes, “Impossible!” It’s so real, so physical, so undeniable, but “impossible.” Then later the White Witch looks up to see the True King of Narnia confronting her, the king she thought she had murdered, and she exclaims, “Impossible!’ He is so real, so physical, so undeniable, yet impossible.

Impossible that He should entrust Himself to the womb of a young country girl from the hick-town of Nazareth.
Impossible that He should travel through the birth canal and place himself in a body, helpless to walk or communicate or even care for his own physical needs.
Impossible that He should suck at his mother’s breast to sustain the life of that very needy body.
Impossible that He should grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
Impossible that He should laugh and cry and feel love and joy and anger and despair.
Impossible that He should share food and conversation and hugs and kisses with a group of human friends, one of whom turned out to be an enemy.
Impossible that He should die.
Even more impossible that He should die and then live–forever.

So real, so physical, so undeniable, so impossible. Only the God of the Impossible could inhabit such a story and make it a physical reality, and only by doing so could He intersect my very physical life and make me believe, know in my bones, the Reality of His love and joy and forgiveness and healing.

I pray for you this Christmas that the Impossible becomes Truth in your physical life where you are sitting and reading these words now.

May you have an Impossible Christmas.