Over the past few weeks I’ve been going to physical therapy for my foot. I’m not sure why it started hurting – no specific injuries that I can recall – but it’s possibly related to the fact that in 2020 I spent much less time wearing shoes than I would in a normal year. The physical therapist commented that they’ve seen a lot of patients with strange aches and pains like this, because so much was different about our routines through these pandemic-times – either more or less activity, or different kinds of activity than we’re used to. For as much time as we’ve spent in virtual spaces over the past year, one could argue that even more of our focus has been on our bodies.
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| Body of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition |
Yes, in big and small ways, 2020 was a year in which we were confronted by the frailty of our bodies. While the narratives from early in the pandemic pointed to the elderly as almost exclusively vulnerable to the virus, the truth is that COVID-19 has been deadly across the board. People of all ages have died from the virus, and those who survive often experience lingering negative effects. Additionally, other ailments that were easily treated in the past have become more deadly as hospitals across the country devote beds and resources to treating ever-increasing numbers of COVID patients.
We also have become increasingly aware of the physical ramifications of isolation and loneliness. FaceTime and Zoom are great, but they cannot replicate the importance of physical touch, or the power of being with one another. Similarly, stress – about the health and safety of loved ones, about unemployment, childcare, school decisions, and more – has physical effects as well, whether that’s muscle tension, or sleeplessness, or exhaustion.
In a year in which we have been confronted by the frailty of our bodies, it is even more astonishing to be reminded that God chose incarnation. As John writes, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
God chose the frailty and vulnerability of flesh in order to be with us. God chose to dwell among us as baby, helpless and in need of care. God chose tenderness and pain and laughter and anger and worry. God chose sore muscles, hunger pangs, hurt feelings, sleepless nights. God chose death, enduring the agony and cruelty of the cross.
In choosing incarnation, God also chose us. God chose to dwell among us, to meet us in our pain, and grief, and worry, and to redeem even those things. God chose nearness, when distance is far simpler and more sanitary. God chose humility, when power and pride are the world’s measures of success.
It is these choices that show us what grace is. It is these choices that show us who God is. It’s true – no one has seen God. But in Jesus, the Living Word, God is made known to us.
We meet Jesus in the waters of baptism, in the bread and wine of the Communion meal, in the Word, read and proclaimed, and in the faces of our neighbors. The God who is made known to us is a God of forgiveness and grace, a God of faithfulness and love, a God of wholeness and abundant life. It is a God who promises to be with us, and is with us, even at the times we are most resistant and least deserving.
Into the frailty of our existence, God was born. The one who was before the creation of the world put on flesh to dwell with us, and in Jesus, we have seen the glory of God, full of grace and truth.
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