Finding Compassion at Christmas

Being human is a messy business. Coming into the world is a messy process.

The testimony of the writings sacred to Christians called the Gospels bear witness that God chose to reveal Godself​ by joining our messiness. The Christian belief is that the divine was fully present in a human person called Jesus. The historical Jesus revealed God’s essential nature as fully as any human could. This was a very big task given to a baby born in an outbuilding of an inn in Palestine. His job was to embody the compassion of God for all people, for all creation. This is not easy to grasp. Human? Divine? Not either/or but both/and? If you don’t get it, don’t worry. Theologians have argued about it for 2,000 years and have written more books on it than can be read.

One of my mentors, the late Rev. Dr. Marcus Borg, was a scholar of the historical Jesus. He was a gentle and soft-spoken man.

Unlike other scholars, he stayed deeply rooted in the local church and in the lives of his students. He was a member of the Jesus Seminar, which was a group of Bible scholars and laity from around the world who met over 30 years from the 1980s through the early 21st century. Their job was to study together the sayings attributed to Jesus and to determine their authenticity by examining all kinds of scrolls and documents. You may know that some of the oldest manuscripts and papyri were found in the 20th century. I first met Dr. Borg at the public lectures the Seminar held in New York City. I subsequently went to hear him speak as often as I could.

Dr. Borg’s many books and lectures were focused on helping contemporary Christians rediscover the Jesus who they may have lost or never knew. (See “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” and “The First Christmas,” with John Dominic Crossan.) That may sound harsh, but it was not meant to be. He simply wanted people to reconnect to the source of their faith.

About God’s compassion for all, Dr. Borg wrote:

One of God's central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for "womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us as a mother feels for the children of her womb.

Since Christmas is about the human embodiment of God’s compassion, I wanted to go to a source beyond my own experience. I wanted to hear from a woman who recently gave birth, so I asked Nina, who runs the Epperson Family Farms with her family sells goods at the Fernandina Farmers Market. If you are really lucky, you may get to meet baby Clyde!

Nina’s own words are more powerful than mine, so here they are.

Pregnancy is an addictive feeling of empowerment. It feels like having a superpower.

I prefer a natural birth because I get to feel everything. From the first contractions to the baby actually moving through the canal. Yes, it’s pain, but is anything painless truly worth it in the end? The amount of sacrifice makes the relief so intoxicating. It’s almost euphoric.

They say giving birth is like running a marathon for the body. That seems about right. I’ve run marathons and ultramarathons. Birth has the same qualities – everyone asks if you’re OK before and during the race, your body must be properly nourished to last, endurance is key for the body and mind, pain is essential to keep going with a strong finish and everyone congratulates you when you finish. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind experience in that you endure so much pain to create the miracle of life.

Pain yields the miracle of life. Nina finds it worthwhile. So did Mary, Jesus’ mother, as she heard what angels told the shepherds and three kings.

Christmas celebrates the embodiment of God’s compassion. It is mysterious, wonderful, perplexing and messy. For right now, just let it all be. Follow the lead of Wendell Berry from his poem, "Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front:"

“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

I wish you a Messy Christmas.