The Soul Felt Its Worth

The dawning of a deeper understanding of the incarnation began with this episode from my life.

****************************************************************************************

            I’m busy preparing for the first Christmas my daughter will probably remember. I’m the parent now, responsible for all the glittering wonder. My husband and I have trimmed the tree and hung her little stocking. I’ve baked the same star-shaped cookies my mom used to set out for Santa alongside carrots for his Reindeer. And on the bookcase beside the sofa, I’ve arranged the crèche my mom gave me when she heard I was going to church, the crèche we made together out of a cracker box when I was six.

I’m ready to put my feet up while my daughter is napping, so I make myself a cup of tea, sit on my cozy couch facing a twinkling tree, and open the latest Newsweek. My eyes fall on an article about Vietnam. In the aftermath of that hideous war, more and more stories are coming out about what really happened. It’s a piece about a young South Vietnamese soldier, who was captured by a squad of Viet Cong who tied him naked to a tree, slit him belly to groin, and pushed his face into his own intestines. Days later, his body was found by his mother and her friends. My chest contracts at the desecration of this priceless son’s life, his cold corpse, once a precious babe growing in the belly of the magazine mother just as my second child is growing in mine. It strikes me afresh, if everyone is someone’s baby, how invaluable is every soul. And how vicious the world that awaits. Vicious, without and within. To think that only months ago, I’d considered divorcing my little girl’s daddy for another man, making my unborn son fatherless before his first breath.

My daughter awakes with a cry. I hurry upstairs and lift her warm body into my arms. Holding her close, I descend to the living room and stand before the babe in the manger, who when grown to be a man, was slain not unlike that poor, Vietnamese soldier. How could any father bear to relinquish his child into a world that defiles its own. Is God’s heart engraved with a scar in the exact shape of Jesus’ name?

I stare at the wise men and their lone, chipped camel. For as long as I can remember, the purple king has carried his chest of gold, the green one his basket of myrrh, the red one his box of frankincense. Only now does it occur to me that these gifts were commonly used for both burial and worship. Only now do I comprehend that if sin is the frigid knife that cut me loose from my creator, then my name is also engraved on the heart of God and the hands and feet of his messiah.

A verse from “O Holy Night” pops into my head. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.

Thanks to Christopher Schmid for the use of his photo from Unsplash.