An Uncomfortable Beautiful Reality

The serene face of baby Jesus stared out at me from amongst the news headlines a few nights ago. His gentle face sandwiched between reports of the war in Ukraine and a UK national budget release. A Renaissance painting of the Madonna and Child that had been discovered in a garage had just sold at auction for more than half a million pounds.

I had seen that same serene face just weeks ago staring down at me in the echoey marble halls of the Louvre in Paris. Walls looming with the venerated products of gifted artists all clambering to recreate the moment that God first breathed-in the scent of stable air.

Some of these paintings in the Louvre recreate Bethlehem’s stable with imposing Romanesque pillars. Their skilful strokes capture Mary and her entourage in aristocratic style draped in colourful silks and gentle smiles. They hue Baby Jesus’ well fed cheeks in blushing pinks and His eyes in starry blues. 

These artworks are breathtaking. But one thing seems to be missing in each of them.  Reality.

What did the infant God’s face really look like when it first pushed painfully through the birth canal and out into the stable air that night?  Much like every other human face first drawing air into tiny untrained  lungs. The grand masters omitted the tiny scrunched up face as lungs, trying to draw breath, choke out fluid and squall out cries for connection. They forgot to add the sallow blue-tinged skin, wet with amniotic fluid and blood. They also forgot the animal dung and soiled stable straw. 

Their’s is a comfortable nativity. Serenely beautiful.

But the infant God didn’t come into a serene and golden existence. He came into ours. He could have chosen the kind of wealth and comfort depicted in the great master’s artworks. But He didn’t. 

He came into human skin, just like the one we wear; flinching skin that smears with life, pricks with fear and shivers in the air of earthly scarcity. He came into the same skin we’re in. To be with us. As one of us. 

Each Christmas season we have the chance to still our world and turn (and return) to seek His face again. Not the perfect haloed face all golden glow, but the scarred face of a God who loves us enough to come. Into this earth. This messy, broken pain-filled earth. Into our skin. Our messy broken pain-filled lives. 

This is the uncomfortable, beautiful reality of Christmas. 

He came to us as one of us. To be with us.

God with us. 

So let’s linger awhile this Advent season. Let’s slow our steps and search out His face. The true face of God. His eyes searching for ours. His heart waiting for us to meet Him here.  

Here in this uncomfortable, beautiful reality. 

Ps- Advent begins in just five days. So does the Long Walk to Bethlehem here in this corner of the internet… I’ll be in touch soon 🙂

My Christmas gift for you is waiting in our Post Box now if you are curious!