The Crossings Community

Nativity 2001

"When I consider...the work of your fingers..."
(design by Gerald Brommer)

God is big. We are small. But only until Jesus finds a way to turn those around. Thus the first piece crosses astronomy with infancy. The second piece, too, is on Jesus' "happy exchange" of our death for his life, as Bob Bertram witnesses to his experience and faith. (Bob was diagnosed with brain cancer this summer, and has undergone difficult therapy.) We thank Robin Morgan, who was there to hear them, for introducing us to Bob's remarks.

C is for Creator
We'd better approach this question indirectly. Start with his handiwork. The Rocky Mountains are big, magnificently impressive, but on the face of the globe mere pimples. And how many millions of such globes would fit into the sun? Even that gargantuan sun is an average star, a middle class functionary in one vast galaxy among--how many? (Carl Sagen: don't answer.) Lord only knows, I'm sure.
R is for Reduction
Unsurprisingly, we humans do not always have faith to pass this trial. This is evident in the several ways we deny God's hugeness. We diminish God, cut God down to our own less daunting size. We shrink God by minimizing God's gifts or laws or power. The gifts we lessen when we forget what great miracles they are (the sun! our bodies! wholesome and delightful daily bread!), or when we slip into thinking that we have these by our working and not by God's giving. Even common complaining, which implies that God has been cheap with us, minimizes his gifts. With such thoughts, words and deeds we reduce God from the liberal Creator he is (and reduce how obliged we are to him).
O is for Ordering
All our diminishing of God has been strong and building during the last 200-300 years. It is not coincidence that during that time researchers have discovered and explained more and more how the universe works: the mathematical formulae that gravity obeys, the rules of genetics, the patterned ebbs and flows of ecosystems. Our scientific age has been so successful in revealing and explaining that our expectations have grown. We are disappointed that economists and meteorologists cannot predict better; we are miffed the few times when our physician cannot say what is wrong with us.
S-S is for So Small
How Small is God?
Not small, the above says. Yet, how small is a zygote (the first cell, a fertilized egg, that in nine months is born a human baby)? When Jesus was a fertile egg, conceived in Mary's virgin womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, a zygote, how small was God? True, the sending Father, the Almighty, and the proceeding life-giving Spirit retained their customary divine bigness.
I is for Increase
As the Son became tiny enough to be Christ, so vastly will God enlarge our lives from brief to eternal, which we cannot, multiplying the nation and increasing its joy. This he accomplishes not from a distance, but in himself. Talk about taking things personally! How big of God to make himself so small. No wonder that Mary, contemplating the little Son in her womb, magnifies the Lord.
N-G is for Nocturnal Grace
So step outside. "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Recognize the arms-breadth of the One who stretched out the heavens you see. But hear the nocturnal heavenly voice say, "Fear not; I bring you good news of great joy." Remember the stretched-out arms on the cross of the One who became small to enlarge you. And thus like the Magi let contemplating the stars direct you to the big God become small for you.
S is for Swap
Bob Bertram is a man who carries himself with dignity. I took many classes with Bob during seminary and grew to love the theology of the Cross, which he taught us. I also grew to respect his dignified demeanor that carried us through some heated discussions that might have devolved into less than useful arguments without that respectful distance with which he shapes his classrooms.