O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature:
Second Sunday after Christmas, BCP, page 214
I don’t remember how old I was when my dad taught me and my sisters to say a prayer on Christmas morning thanking God for sending Jesus to us before rushing downstairs to see what was waiting for us under the tree, but clearly it was a lesson that stayed with me since I still do it. Over the years I’ve come to understand that all those beautifully wrapped presents, unearned gifts, given simply because the givers love the recipients, are but tangible reminders of the greatest unearned gift of all.
While God choosing to take human form to dwell among us was most assuredly an unearned gift, it was not a gift without purpose. Out of patience, I’ve always imagined, at how far the Hebrew people had drifted from the way God had called them to live, and how steadfastly they had ignored the prophets, God decided to try a different approach. Rather than sending more rules via additional prophets God chose to send Jesus as an example of how to live. In the language of the Prayer Book, one could say that Jesus spent his entire ministry trying to restore the dignity of human nature. Clearly that was not something that could be accomplished once and for all, but rather is an ongoing task that we need to pursue, on Jesus’ behalf, throughout our lives. This new year, as we attempt to move beyond all that was awful about 2020, that feels particularly important. There’s no question that countless people, from medical personnel to firefighters to first responders to everyone who had to leave home to do their jobs while others of us were able to remain safely ensconced in our little Covid-free cocoons, put their lives on the line for others. Neither we nor God could possibly have asked more of them. At the same time there were plenty of examples of behavior that was less than admirable last year, as there always are. We humans after all, are eternally fallible. And yet for all our faults, it’s important to remember that what separates humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom is not our ability to reason but our capacity to love. Living into that trait would go a long way toward restoring the dignity of human nature.
So in the same way that the secular world emphasizes making New Year’s resolutions, it seems fitting that as we turn the page from Christmas season to Epiphany, we take time to remind ourselves of what sets us apart, and look for ways to live that out. Maybe we need to commit ourselves anew to habits that somehow slipped by the wayside in the turmoil of a tumultuous year. Perhaps we need to adopt new behaviors that will empower us to connect at a more genuine level with others. At our best we humans are capable of a degree of altruism not seen anywhere else in creation. How are you going to prove that to be true?
