
I submitted to the alarm clock this morning. It wasn't such a bad thing to have my sleep interrupted by the insidious chirp, chirp, chirp of my alarm clock. The clock has been with me for the past dozen (or so) moves about the world. You might say we are married to each other. Last night, for the first night in quite a while, I went to bed and fell asleep in a flash...or, is that "like a flash"? Regardless, once my head eased onto the pillow, I cannot remember staying awake beyond a few seconds. I slept soundly too. As far as I can tell, I wasn't interrupted by visions of sugar plums or sleigh bells ringing. Earlier, I had been able to hear some excited little feet upstairs, running hither and yon, likely attempting to discern the contents in the colorful packages of varying shapes and sizes under their Christmas tree. Those sounds served to be the best inducement to slumber I've heard in...oh, at least a year!. I don't even know the names of the children upstairs. Still I'm certain that--in the midst of their Christmas Eve glee--they sounded more like tiny tots with their eyes all aglow than a four-legged caribou with a nose "you could even say it glows". I do recall, as I was tucking myself in, I asked Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (a great prayer warrior) to pray to God on my behalf, that by next year there would be someone sleeping next to me hogging all the covers, she in her kerchief and I in my San Diego Chargers cold-weather cap and three sets of thermal underwear. Last night I had the bed linens all to myself. Good thing too, for when I awoke, I was consternated to realize I had virtually entrapped myself by subconsciously wrapping me very effectively in my sheets, blankets and bedspread. You could even say I was "swaddled". Ah, the point of the story! When I was a child I learned that the baby "Christ The Lord" had been wrapped in swaddling cloths. Yet in the year of my confirmation in the Presbyterian Church, I had been given a current edition of The Holy Scriptures which read that The Baby had been "wrapped in folding cloths". I sought out my minister for an explanation of this typo. He told me that, in the original scriptures, the words meant "folding cloths". I would need to remember that the baby, Christ the Lord, got wrapped and folded, not swaddled. You may be wondering why I'm not saying "The Baby Jesus". That's because this wasn't the baby Jesus...yet. This was Christ our Lord, just as the archangel Gabriel had announced: "...But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and YOU SHALL call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins...” Matthew 1:20-21 (NKJV) Great trivia question: "Who named Jesus?" Answer: His parents (Mary got the same message). ...And he called His name JESUS... (verse 25) Understand though, a Jewish male child is not officially named until the eighth day from his birth (see the story of The Circumcision of St John The Forerunner (the Baptist ) (in Luke 1:59-66) Hmmm...25th of December (1st day) 26th (2nd day) 27th (3rd day) 28th (4th day) 29th (5th day) 30th (6th day) 31st (7th day) and January 1st, the 8th day, officially recognized in the Orthodox Christian Church as the "name day" of Jesus, The Christ. It was on the eighth day from his birth that Christ The Lord was given The Name of Jesus by his human parents. And you were buying into that Urban Myth that the 25th of December was chosen to replace a pagan celebration (which was and still is celebrated on December 21st). Continuing, Holy Scripture also tells us: "...Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger'...” (Luke 2:8-12 NKJV) He who IS Christ the Lord became The Lord Christ Jesus. The Son of God was named The Son of Man. The WORD of God (LOGOS) was literally spoken into incarnation by The Father, upon the anointing "breath" of The Holy Spirit of God. Christ OF the Lord IS indeed, The Lord. Back to the start of this blog: me, waking to find myself a prisoner of my own bed linens. What? a...PRISONER? IF I were a prisoner of my own bedsheets by my own tossing and turning, then what was Christ The Lord when he was wrapped in swaddling cloths by others? Let's consider the submissions of Christ in His Nativity: 1. He through whom all things were made submitted Himself to the flesh of His creation. 2. He submitted Himself and became One with his host, the womb (and placenta and umbilical cord) of The Blessed Virgin Mary, who was herself submitting to the will of God and being One with Him, thereby becoming our greatest human role model as Christians. 3. He submitted Himself to birth. Ask any Obstetrician and they will confirm that vaginal birth delivery is perhaps the most violent event that (in perspective) a person will ever undergo in their life 4. He submitted Himself to be BOUND/wrapped in swaddling cloths. The point here is not what KIND of cloths these were but rather HOW those cloths were used. Check out a nativity icon. The baby Christ The Lord appears as a fully wrapped mummy, with only his Divine face appearing from the otherwise complete swaddling of His Being. That was MORE than enough, for Patriarch Jacob prophesied: "...So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 'For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved'...” Genesis 32:30 NKJV 5. He submitted himself to the care of his human parents. 6. He submitted Himself to humanity and creation, in a stable in a cave, the home of livestock, full of the stench of warmth-giving livestock manure, underneath the dwellings of cold and indifferent humans above 7. He submitted Himself to the circumcision of His Divine flesh 8. He submitted His Divine Self to being named by his human parents 9. And, lest we forget, in all of this he submitted Himself to the will of God The Father, to The Glory of The Triune God. So, now I have a choice: return to my bed and submit myself to my twisted bed linens, or, get out of my house and proclaim to everyone I encounter the good news: that, on this day in The City of David, Christ The Lord is born! Suddenly I feel so submissive...and so free! A Joyous Nativity of Christ The Lord be yours! In Christ Jesus, Gordie |