Choosing Intimacy at Christmas
In the very beginning of his Gospel, John writes:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1: 1-5 NIV)
My husband, a Greek scholar (read: nerd), and I were mulling over John’s words recently, and he pointed out the seemingly innocuous phrase “was with” to me. As a fellow nerd, just one confined to a different language (English), I saw a simple past tense verb (was) and a preposition (with) repeated twice. Though the repetition put me on alert, I didn’t recognize the significance of those two simple words. Ben explained that the phrase in Greek has no direct or adequate translation into English, but the idea of “toward” exists in the original language. He went on to paint this verbal picture of two beings face-to-face (facing towards one another) in a close, intimate encounter.
Jesus was face-to-face with God.
Then, I understood. John is underscoring for his readers the intimacy of Jesus the Son with God the Father. Their intimacy models the relationship God seeks with us.
But intimacy is hard. When’s the last time you were intimately face-to-face with your spouse or child or friend and held that gaze for more than seven seconds? I’ll confess, I can’t remember the last time I did. With so much going on, so many distractions, so much to accomplish in any given day, I rarely find myself eye-to-eye with anyone. To be honest, most of the time I’m multitasking, a definite barrier to intimacy. Whether I’m sending out work emails while listening to my son share about reading to his brother’s class or paying a bill while stirring spaghetti sauce, I’m rarely focused on just one task, much less solely on the person I’m with.
Intimacy is much more than gazing into another’s eyes, though, isn’t it? We must gaze intently into each other’s lives, seeing the souls and hearts of the people we’re called to love, knowing their weaknesses and their joys, and bolstering them up with our love and encouragement. Intimacy is about knowing and being known.
But to be intimate requires slowing down and being vulnerable, allowing silences and moments to linger. Intimacy happens when we see another person fully for who they are without turning away. Intimacy thrives where sacrifice and love flourish.
The difficulty for most of us, though, is that intimacy inhibits productivity.
As I think about how I typically approach the Christmas season, I can easily list the acts of productivity but not the ones of intimacy. For example:
- Making gift lists
- Accepting party invites
- Taking shopping trips
- Writing greeting cards
- Decorating Christmas trees
- Baking cookies
This list could go on. Hear me out: I enjoy these activities because they help me build important bonds and memories with my family. But when Christmas becomes more about my productivity and less about the intimacy I can have with God and others, I think I’m missing the point.
The Christmas story we’re told in Scripture depicts an intimacy that I want to cultivate in this Christmas season.
The centerpiece of the Christmas narrative is the birth of our Savior. I have birthed three babies and can readily attest that everything surrounding birth points to intimacy. Sex is intimate. The nine months of a tiny human developing within a mother’s womb are intimate. Laboring and delivering: intimate. The moments and hours and days with a newborn: intimate.
My first labor was slow and difficult, ultimately ending with an emergency c-section. I could not demand labor to be hurried; I could only be fully present in each moment, with my husband by my side, as we waited and worked to coax our firstborn out. When our tiny, five-pound, red-headed baby boy finally emerged, I could not turn my gaze from him. With both awe and a deep desire to know who this tiny stranger was, I studied him, I looked in his eyes, I held him, and I whispered to him. Once home from the hospital, I used every waking moment and ounce of energy I had to take care of my son. I often think of those days as simple survival mode, but in reality, I was intimately and sacrificially loving him.
Do we dare consider that like a mother with her newborn, Jesus intimately loves us? This continues to be a God truth I wrestle to wrap my head (and heart) around. But if it’s possible for me, a finite being, to intimately and intensely love my children, then perhaps it’s quite real that the infinite Word made flesh loves us.
The divine intimacy Jesus shared— and then broke—with God the Father is astounding. His coming as light shining into our darkness reveals his deep and intimate love for us. From his birth to his crucifixion, he repeatedly demonstrated sacrificial love for those he created.
Could you, this season, slow down and linger, choosing intimacy over productivity to honor and reflect the intimate love so fully demonstrated in Emmanuel, God with us?
is a writer, blogger, and occasional college professor. She lives with her husband, three kiddos, and dogs Nate and Jemma in South Carolina. When she’s not writing or teaching others to write, she enjoys hiking, making beeswax wraps, learning about natural health, taking road trips, and drinking the perfect latte. Allison loves to connect with others about family, special needs parenting, mental health, grief, and faith. Her writing has been featured on The Mighty and Her View from Home, and you can find more of it on her blog Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy.
Photograph © Manu B, used with permission
