milk & honey mamas

December at milk and honey mamas will be dedicated to Christmas. Today we’re sharing a centering post about incarnation, and each week of the month we will share an advent story and outline for families to welcome the Christmas season. Check out our blog for resources including books, movies, music, recipes, and more! Stay tuned this month for lots of seasonal gems as we honor the season with mama hearts 💕

Story contributed by Kristen

The night is soft and dark around me, my movements muted and fuzzy. I pull myself up and arch over the cradle, gathering my infant to my breast. I wrap my arm around his soft, warm head as he calms and begins to nurse. I close my eyes and lean my head back, half asleep in the faceless still of night. My body wanders into the memory of a still night in Bethlehem, hills ringing with the songs of angels, and a night sky strangely lit by a blazing star. I peek into a stable and find a manger. I see a young mother, spent from her labor, and a tiny babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes. I watch the mother, half asleep on the straw by the manger. She wakes at the baby’s cry and lifts him gently in her arms. She gazes at her child, unmoved by the sounds of the stable. Tiny, half-focused eyes center on her face and the child’s small fists still their hungry movements as the mother brings the infant to her breast, cradling his soft head in the crook of her arm. 

Incarnation. God become flesh. Here it is, this night that will live in memory across the world for centuries to come. Here are the shepherds, following the star. Far away, the wise people trace its advent in the sky. Here is the stable, the manger, the holy family. The girl will become Theotokos, god-bearer. Her infant will become Christ. But tonight, there are no halos around their heads. Mary is tired, her body aching from her labor. Her face is streaked with sweat and dust from travel. Her little one, her Yeshua, wails helplessly for her care. This is an earthly scene, wet with sweat and blood, pain and fear, hope and love. 

Believers will tell the story of tonight for centuries to come. Little by little, the scene will be sanitized, shifted from earth and flesh. We will marvel at the miracle of God’s condescension, to come from the glory of heaven to a scene as humble at this. We will marvel at what the infant will become, and how he will overcome the world. Adopting metaphors relevant to our shifting contexts, we will tell the story of his salvation as ransom, substitution, satisfaction. We see in Bethlehem the projection of the cross, the tomb, and the upper room. We know how the story goes, Pieta juxtaposed with Madonna. We see the birth at the end of labor, the resurrection after burial. We see Christ, and Mary saw Yeshua. If she believed he would be the Savior, I doubt she knew she would bury him. If she trusted her heavenly messengers, I wonder how she felt when Rome crucified her son.

Wandering in Bethlehem, a stranger in this sacred scene, I want to warn Mary. “They’re going to take him away from you,” the words choke in my throat, “They’re going to kill him, and you will have to watch.”

Softly, she traces his nose with her finger, wraps his swaddling more snugly around his body, and I hear Gabriel’s words, the Lord is with you. And I understand. God did not wait to come until this moment, in this stable, to lie in this manger. God came to this moment, this stable, this manger to say “I am one of you. I have always been one of you.” When injustice reigned, God came back. God said, “nothing can keep me from you. I will not turn away. You are worth coming back to. This world is worth coming back to.”

The miracle, I believe, is not just that the heavens parted to descend to earth, but that the heavens part. That the lines between earth and heaven are at last our own fabrications, and that this broken, weary, aching place of so much grief and pain and wrong is our home, may we make it so. 

Divine disclosure floods through the cracks in our broken world. It is where we least expect it, the corners of desolation and despair lit by stars in the night. It may not be that this is a story of overcoming. It may be, instead, a story of coming. Of staying. Of keeping watch all the night, and waking morning by morning.  

A movement, a creak in the night, and Bethlehem melts away. My Toronto night takes shape again, smoothing the creases of memory. 

But there, nestled in the crook of my arm, Yeshua. Incarnation.

Ideas for Advent:

• Make an advent wreath!

• Check out our resources!

Follow along for each week of advent:

• Hope (December 3)
• Love (December 10)
• Joy (December 17)
• Peace (December 24)