Blood and skin.

I like skin. I like it better than flesh. Flesh is the biblical term that escapes us. We think we know what it means but we have built-in buffers from overuse without knowledge. We nod knowingly, but the power of the concept slips by. Skin is more accessible. We can scratch it… pinch it… rub it… prick it and it bleeds. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” is one thing. “The Word came in skin” is another. One is theological; the other is visceral. John says they heard the Word with their ears, saw it with their eyes and handled it with their hands. That’s because it came in skin.

At my ordination three years ago, a few witnesses were asked to express their encouragement and insight into my life and ministry through word pictures, and Chandler, who was ten-years-old at the time, surprised us all by volunteering his own contribution in two words: blood and skin. What could be more profound?

Blood and skin. Wine and bread. These are the elements that Jesus sanctified and turned into sacraments: Do this as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup. Remember His death.

And this is unequivocally the most mysterious and amazing thing about Christmas, because our Christmases celebrate the fact that God took on blood and skin – broke one for our sin, poured out the other to give us the ability to live a new life based on a new covenant or new arrangement by which His Spirit would now be made available to us in uniting with our spirits and indwelling us – His Spirit now inside our skin. None of this would have been possible without Christ’s blood and skin. And none of that would have been possible without Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, a real town on the real earth in real time.

See Him laugh
See Him plead
Slit His side
See Him bleed
Rejoice!