A Body You Have Prepared for Me

The letter to the Hebrews claims “a body you have prepared for me.” Billions of years ago God prepared a body for his Son by creating a universe. Then in the fullness of time God’s power in material things came to a climax in the Incarnation of Jesus. On that first Christmas night the goodness, truth, and beauty of the universe reside in a tiny Baby and move toward fulfillment in the glorified Christ. When Mary and Joseph looked upon the Little One, God with a baby smell, they were surrounded by animals, feeding trough, straw and hay. Christmas carols bemoan the fact that Jesus wasn’t born in a palace. Yet looking back two millennia, we begin to realize that everything in the universe (straw, hay, animals, mother and foster father) are all modeled on Christ, for He is the reason and goal of all creation. The tiny sounds from a baby Boy, the Word of God, were moving through the universe, giving it meaning and reaching to its fulfillment. The currents running through the Baby’s blood are the same current that runs through the swirling galaxies. Christ did much more than come to save us from our sins. Christ is the very reason for the world. The whole universe is incarnational, for Jesus the Christ makes all things holy. Come not only to the stable, but also to your dinner table and Christmas tree for all creation is sacred because God became human and invested himself in our universe. “Come adore on bended knee Christ the Lord, the newborn King!”