One of our readers commented that yesterday’s Catch is going to be helpful in forming his thoughts for a teaching he’s about to do on communion, or the evangelical word for the commemoration of the Last Supper – what Jesus asked His followers to do to remember His death in the common elements of bread and wine. I wrote him back, “Fabulous. I know it will go well. Think of it as if you were there on that night. Imagine what’s going through the disciples’ minds. Imagine the sounds, smells, tastes, feelings. Make it human.” And I was reminded again of why we miss so much of the reality of God’s coming to us in Jesus. Christ came down, and we keep trying to send Him back. If we have lost the human significance of Christ’s coming, we have missed the whole point.

The theological word for it is incarnation; the practical word for it is Jesus. There is theology and then there is Jesus. Jesus is the stuff of it. Jesus is the final word. Jesus is not a concept; He is a human being. He has been, and always will be a human being. Christmas celebrates when He was born into our time and space, but He is human right now, seated next to the Father in heaven. He didn’t just take on our form for a while; He is us. He came to be us – to touch us, to redeem us, to gather us together and bring us with Him to the Father. Jesus is God’s idea for us realized. He is the firstborn of God’s new creation – the human idea reclaimed. And in being the first born, He is leading the rest of us, through our own death and resurrection, into our rightful place with Him in eternity.

And in doing so Jesus says “Yes” to all that we are. The only thing that changes is to rid us of sin, but our humanity is fully redeemed in Christ. We don’t become ghosts, we don’t become Martians, we become fully human – God’s idea reclaimed.

Christ’s physical dimensions may be different after His resurrection (He can appear and disappear), but His physical presence is the same. He has hair, two eyes, a nose and a mouth. He has a right and a left hand by which He does things. He walks; He doesn’t float. He is fully recognizable as one of us. In His new body He walked and talked with his disciples. He ate with them, and let them touch Him. He even retained His wounds (rather important wounds, indeed). He didn’t go back to being whatever form He took before Bethlehem, He is who He is, and He is human. And I would like to add that outside of time and space (where God exists and has always existed) He has always been human.

Because of Jesus, we don’t get out of being human; we get into being human. We finally discover what our humanness is all about. Yes, Christmas celebrates Christ’s coming, but it also affirms you and me. What a great thing it is to be you.

So celebrate Christ this Christmas, but also, celebrate each other. I think that’s what He would want us to do.