Holy Name and small spaces

My Grandmother was a diminutive person. At her tallest she stood a little above five feet but age reduced this and as she got shorter and we grandchildren grew taller, she would remind us, often, that “the best things come in small packages.” This same argument held for anything which seemed about to cause us children disappointment or conflict because of size. We knew better than to disagree.

Today the shepherds decide to leave the vast expanse of their hills and run to a small stable inhabited by an obscure family with a tiny baby. To that baby they give a giant name. Messiah, the one who is to come. The best things come in small packages.

It is hard to conceive that in the tiny infant, who is yet to be named, amongst common folk, there resides God in human form. We say it so often that it has become easy to say – but in the Gospels, those who know this truth are met by angels and given a sort of health warning – do not be afraid.

St John of the Cross was a sixteenth century mystic and he says this,

“In the beginning Word was; he lived in God and possessed in him his infinite happiness.” It is a beautiful picture but for that same God poured out, that same Word was poured out into human form, into a chosen slavery for all of us. Why? Simply because he loved us. John sees Jesus tears at diamonds, a symbol of the infinite worth of this child as divinity and humanity meet.

We rattle this off every week in the Creed – God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten not made – sound familiar. When I was a child, singing in the choir, the creed was a bit of a chore. We sang it but it was rather long and monotonous, we had to get through it to get to the more interesting bits of the service.

But the Nicene Creed is a very succinct rendering of a very big promise which God has made to us. This Jesus, this second person of the Trinity, has been from the beginning. This Word was at creation, breathed across the waters, resides in Trinity. The Church spent a lot of time in its early years trying to hammer out some sense around the who and how of Jesus. The thought that Jesus could be who Jesus was, God who did not cling to the place of God but who was made for is and in us, was too big, too nebulous and you get a whole load of ideas of pieces of Jesus being human, pieces being Divine. Perhaps Jesus was more of a superhero. Perhaps Jesus was actually all God just morphed into a sort of human figure.

But that is not where we got to – in this tiny baby, so the Church proclaims  - God was begotten not made, was one substance with the Father – so was made out of God stuff. And this person of the trinity, this creator God, became incarnate and was made of our stuff too.

Heaven touches earth and earth touches heaven – I love that phrase, from a medieval poem, “heaven and earth in little space”.

And this heaven and earth in little space takes on the full load of what it is to be human – on the eighth day Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple where he is circumcised and named. There are two important symbols here. Naming in the Bible is a sort of ownership, knowing a name gives you power over a person. God never has a name in the Bible, to know God’s name would mean certain death. God is not like the idols made from human hands who hold names.

Jesus name is given to Mary but she, in turn, makes Jesus name known. To a faithful Jew, that God would take human form is ridiculous, but that God would be named is equally unthinkable. And then there is the ritual of circumcision. Jesus enters the covenant people. But there might be a whisper back to something else in Exodus. There the people are told that they may keep slaves, but for seven years and then they must be released. If a slave does not want to leave he or she can make a contract with the master and the sign of this is that the person’s ear is pierced with an awl – binding servant and master together.

Philippians uses this language of doulos – slave or bondservant - for Jesus. In circumcision God binds Godself to this incarnation and, perhaps, offers a small shadow of what is to come.

Yesterday I watched the U2 video for a Song for Someone. The main character is played by Woody Harelson. It is a short story about a man who has been in prison for many years being released. Without words it perfectly portrays both the excitement and fear, and there is a lot of fear, of a man who is about to accept freedom. His daughter, who we know was an toddler when he came to prison, comes to pick him up. They conversation in the car is awkward but as they begin their journey his expression has changed from nervousness and fear to a more hopeful freedom.

In the Bible the invitation to freedom which is made to Zechariah and Mary and the Shepherds comes with a warning – do not be afraid. Stepping out of what we have thought of ourselves and our lives can be a frightening experience – but we are invited into a new place.

The poem which I mentioned before – heaven and earth in little space is actually about Mary. She is described as a rose – in that rose contained was, heaven and earth in little space. You see, that is what Jesus makes possible, for us to contain heaven and earth – not as God like he was – not as incarnation – but as those who allow ourselves to be more and more poured out and more and more filled with the Holy Spirit.

I quoted John of the Cross, later in the same poem God says to Word, “whoever resembles you most, satisfies me most”. We are called to resemble, to become a true likeness of God in Jesus. No wonder the angels tell people not to be afraid.

The passage in Philippians says – let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus – that is that we do not cling to status or power, but that we humble ourselves. That we do not see our position and fortune as a sort of lever in life but that we seek the pleasure of God.

And this is a dangerous journey, as we seek to become a little space for heaven and earth. In a world which values the big and the brave, the bold and the brash looking at this tiny baby makes no sense – but there are two sorts of ridiculous, the one we tend to want to believe – that we are invincible and we can scale the heavens by our own efforts and this other ridiculous, that we take who we are, that we see the brokenness of our world and that we look at this little space of meeting and find everything there.

Near the end of the Poem “Marina” T. S. Eliot gives Pericles these words, I am stealing them away to fit our purpose (although Eliot might have been saying this too).

‘……let me, Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships”

Let us, then resign our lives for this life of little space, our speech for heaven and earth unspoken – that awakened, lips parted we may in hope receive the bread of heaven.