Away In A Manger

Jesus is always a baby at Christmas. And God is a parent. When I was young, "father" language for God always communicated something about my relation with God---one of love, hopefully, but also of dependence, deference to the larger and wiser.

Not until I became a parent did it come to me that this language was not only saying how it looked from my end. Suddenly I thought not of the stature of a parent looming above me, but of the helpless fear with which I watched our toddler daughter begin walking and falling, knowing I must not hold her back and feeling sick with the possibilities. It dawned on me that to call God father or mother was to attribute that sort of seasick vulnerability. It was not just to bow down but to cry out with shocked empathy.

How can God stand it? We have only a few children to keep out of the traffic and sometimes just the thought is enough to stop your heart. We see the infant in the manger and shiver for him to be warmed; hear the soldiers in the street and squirm for his safety.

This is the primary "authority" we receive as parents, the power to be endlessly delighted and wounded by love, hostage to our little ones' good. A parental name for God announces that authority expanded beyond measure, awesome, terrible.

S. Mark Heim
Samuel Abbot Professor of Christian Theology

Advent Light

The Bible uses light as a metaphor for creation. When and where the light beams, there is life. Consider how these images of light appear in these pivotal moments from the Bible.

Light beams in response to the divine command in the creation story from Genesis (Gen 1:2-3).

Light reflects from Moses'’ face in the giving of the Torah (Exod 34:29).

Light illuminates the path of the Judahites in their return from captivity (Isa 60:1).

Lights in the sky attract the attention of the shepherds, the first witnesses to Advent (Lk 2:8-9).

Everyone thinks that the light they know is the best. The Israelites claimed their light was better than the Canaanites'’ light. The Jesus movement, with their Rabbi Paul, said they saw a brighter light than the Pharisees had seen. The Muslims claimed, centuries later, that their light, their revelation, was clearer and more invigorating that the light of the Jews and the Christians.

This season, every season, this day and every morning, let us walk and bask in the light of our traditions, cherishing them, grateful for them because they give us companions for the journey and illumination for our paths.

Let us also remember that lucky old sun rolling around heaven all day. That lucky old sun knows another truth. That any light we manage to perceive on planet Earth is from a single source. That all these sightings by ancient magi, prophets, rabbis, priests, and storytellers are but emanations of the one true light.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Greg Mobley
Associate Professor of Old Testament

Entries from the Institution Hill Theological Lexicon

"Salvation means participation in a web of relationships with God and
others that the incarnation makes possible ..."

Mark Heim in The Depths of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of
Religious Ends (Eerdmans, 2001), 246.