“Like a Hug from Your Grandma”
“They call it [a] hug,” Scott said.“And they said you know,
The first time you do it,
You just get this secure feeling.
It’s almost like a warm embrace,
Like a hug from your grandma. …
And they said once you feel that
You crave it constantly.”
Scott, an EMS paramedic in Winston-Salem,
Is talking about his encounters with heroin addiction.
Canadian physician Gabor Maté shares a similar story
The first time you do it,
You just get this secure feeling.
It’s almost like a warm embrace,
Like a hug from your grandma. …
And they said once you feel that
You crave it constantly.”
Scott, an EMS paramedic in Winston-Salem,
Is talking about his encounters with heroin addiction.
Canadian physician Gabor Maté shares a similar story
From a twenty-seven-year-old woman living on the streets:
“When I first did heroin,” she says,
“It felt like a warm soft hug,
Just like a mother hugging her baby.”
The opioid epidemic in America
Has taken more lives
Than the wars in Vietnam and Iraq combined.
“Every 11 minutes, another life is lost.”
I wonder:
Would it be an overstatement to say that
Our world is dying for a hug—
Literally dying for a hug?
“In the beginning,” begins the gospel of John,
Launching into his version of the creation story,
Which is also his version of the Christmas story.
Poetically he proclaims:
Christ was with God before the world began.
All things life and light came into being through Christ (1:3-4).
Which is to say,
Christ is not only born in Bethlehem.
Christ is in our DNA.
Christ is in everything’s DNA.
Christ is the fabric with which our world is woven.
“He came to what was his own,” John says (1:11).
You are his own.
I am his own.
Our neighbor, our enemy, every stranger is his own.
“To all who received him,” John says,
“He gave power to become children of God” (1:12).
Which is to say,
Jesus is our brother.
To receive him as such is to become aware of our divine heritage, our DNA:
We too are children of God!
Children need hugs, you know.
(Hugs from grandma are the best, of course—
The finest hugs out there.)
Our brother Jesus knows the importance of hugs.
Jesus, John says, “is close to the Father’s heart” (1:18).
The Greek literally says “bosom.”
Jesus is close to God’s bosom.
Jesus knows God’s embrace.
God’s hug.
I don’t know about you.
But for me, much of the time,
It is hard to feel God’s hug.
“No one has ever seen God,” John says (1:18).
Amen.
It is hard to feel the hug
Of someone you cannot see.
But Jesus feels it.
Jesus knows God’s embrace,
And it is he, John says,
“Who has made [God] known” (1:18).
In other words,
Jesus shows us what it looks like to be hugged by God.
Jesus makes us known what it feels like to be hugged by God.
John’s good news is not trite.
He does not say to a world
That is dying for a hug,
Quite literally,
“You’re looking for embrace?
God’s already hugging you,
Can’t you feel it?”
John knows our world doesn’t feel it.
More importantly, God knows our world doesn’t feel it.
The good news of Christmas is this:
Jesus, our brother, does feel it.
“Close to [God’s] bosom,”
Jesus, our brother, feels the warm, eternal embrace of God.
An embrace that brings not death but life.
And the good news is this:
Jesus, our brother, insists that we can know this warm embrace too.
He is here to show us the way (cf. 1:18).
And it is a way. A process. A journey.
A lifetime of learning and growing and transforming.
“When I first did heroin,” she says,
“It felt like a warm soft hug,
Just like a mother hugging her baby.”
Dying for a Hug
The opioid epidemic in America
Has taken more lives
Than the wars in Vietnam and Iraq combined.
“Every 11 minutes, another life is lost.”
I wonder:
Would it be an overstatement to say that
Our world is dying for a hug—
Literally dying for a hug?
Christ Is in Our DNA
“In the beginning,” begins the gospel of John,
Launching into his version of the creation story,
Which is also his version of the Christmas story.
Poetically he proclaims:
Christ was with God before the world began.
All things life and light came into being through Christ (1:3-4).
Which is to say,
Christ is not only born in Bethlehem.
Christ is in our DNA.
Christ is in everything’s DNA.
Christ is the fabric with which our world is woven.
Jesus, Our Brother
“He came to what was his own,” John says (1:11).
You are his own.
I am his own.
Our neighbor, our enemy, every stranger is his own.
“To all who received him,” John says,
“He gave power to become children of God” (1:12).
Which is to say,
Jesus is our brother.
To receive him as such is to become aware of our divine heritage, our DNA:
We too are children of God!
In the Father’s Bosom
Children need hugs, you know.
(Hugs from grandma are the best, of course—
The finest hugs out there.)
Our brother Jesus knows the importance of hugs.
Jesus, John says, “is close to the Father’s heart” (1:18).
The Greek literally says “bosom.”
Jesus is close to God’s bosom.
Jesus knows God’s embrace.
God’s hug.
I don’t know about you.
But for me, much of the time,
It is hard to feel God’s hug.
“No one has ever seen God,” John says (1:18).
Amen.
It is hard to feel the hug
Of someone you cannot see.
But Jesus feels it.
Jesus knows God’s embrace,
And it is he, John says,
“Who has made [God] known” (1:18).
In other words,
Jesus shows us what it looks like to be hugged by God.
Jesus makes us known what it feels like to be hugged by God.
Learning God’s Embrace
John’s good news is not trite.
He does not say to a world
That is dying for a hug,
Quite literally,
“You’re looking for embrace?
God’s already hugging you,
Can’t you feel it?”
John knows our world doesn’t feel it.
More importantly, God knows our world doesn’t feel it.
The good news of Christmas is this:
Jesus, our brother, does feel it.
“Close to [God’s] bosom,”
Jesus, our brother, feels the warm, eternal embrace of God.
An embrace that brings not death but life.
And the good news is this:
Jesus, our brother, insists that we can know this warm embrace too.
He is here to show us the way (cf. 1:18).
And it is a way. A process. A journey.
A lifetime of learning and growing and transforming.
…
But that’s getting ahead of tonight’s story.
Let’s take it one day at a time—
Just like baby Jesus did.
Tonight, we see Jesus in the embrace
Of an obscure, poor couple, Mary and Joseph;
We see Jesus in the embrace
Of a feeding trough, maybe occasionally nuzzled by curious creatures;
We see Jesus in the embrace, perhaps,
Of the shepherds who come to witness this mystery.
Come, let us embrace him too,
Our brother;
And let us stay with him,
To learn the good news
He has come to share.
Jesus, our brother,
Kind and good,
We wonder at this news
That we, like you, are children of God.
…
Tonight, we embrace you,
Hoping that in the days to come
We might know the divine embrace
That gives us the fulness of life
For which we long.
Amen.
Let’s take it one day at a time—
Just like baby Jesus did.
Tonight, we see Jesus in the embrace
Of an obscure, poor couple, Mary and Joseph;
We see Jesus in the embrace
Of a feeding trough, maybe occasionally nuzzled by curious creatures;
We see Jesus in the embrace, perhaps,
Of the shepherds who come to witness this mystery.
Come, let us embrace him too,
Our brother;
And let us stay with him,
To learn the good news
He has come to share.
Prayer
Jesus, our brother,
Kind and good,
We wonder at this news
That we, like you, are children of God.
…
Tonight, we embrace you,
Hoping that in the days to come
We might know the divine embrace
That gives us the fulness of life
For which we long.
Amen.
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