I recently lost two of my senses. Now, if you ask my wife, she’ll tell you I never had any sense to begin with, but the fact remains: I lost my ability to smell and to taste. What an odd way in which to ‘be’. At first, it was almost fun—at least to me—as I pondered the grossest things to eat and smell and then decided to video myself following up with action. But after a few days, food lost its luster. I stopped eating regular food and just started eating soup. After all, my sense of touch wasn’t gone, so hot liquid turned into a delicacy; I was happy to receive something that elicited a bodily response.
As I quaffed liquid pounds of nothingness, my eyes tried to trick my tastebuds into thinking they’d touched something known. Sight beheld soup, mind transferred thought, tongue almost gets tricked. But it wasn’t true. A fleeting moment of hope destroyed by a followed minute of dull vacancy. Soup, as it turns out, is not capable of magic tricks.
Of course, the loss of my senses came at the behest of a new visiting illness—well, new to me—from the Covid family. As a Covidian does, I had to sequester myself into a room in our home. Now, I won’t get into the isolation of suffering inflicted upon me by being banished into a place with a 4k television, an Xbox, and a mechanized sofa. I know you all feel my pain just by that description. But I will tell you that after a few days, the room started mimicking the sense-deprived soup: bland, repetitive, and devoid of any flavor or nostalgia-wielding properties. I would read for a little while, play video games for a little while, take a nap, read, play, nap, and repeat.
I won’t lie, it was fun for a little while. Basically, the first day. It was great! Death didn’t call to brag about its latest capture; sickness didn’t beckon with its latest victim; poverty didn’t shove its head in the door and brag about new members; and loneliness hovered silently—not saying anything, just waiting in the darkness to strike. But then, eventually, I realized something.
Joy hadn’t stopped by, either. Laughter had been muted. The touch of my loved one was just out of reach.
I reeled in panic at some points. How long was this going to last? Would I ever get my senses back? How much longer did I have to stay in this room, burdened by my privilege? Poor, poor, pitiful Sean. Sitting in the isolation of a comfortable, heated room, with toys and amenities and no one to bother him. Isn’t that the dream? Peace and quiet, uninterrupted by anyone or anything?
No. It’s the nightmare—people are our bastion. Because there is no peace in being alone. There is no quiet in this silence, as my mind fills my attention with things I should be ‘out there’ doing.
On the last night before I thought I’d be released from my prison, I started thinking about those who lost so much time during the actual pandemic. Then, I thought about those who caught this insidious sickness and didn’t have a loving partner to bring them tasteless food and drinks, medicines and love. I thought about what it must’ve been like for the modern-day Lazarus, stricken with Covid lying under an overpass, praying to God that someone would pull over and offer him a drink of water. Or maybe a gentle word. Or some food. Or a blanket. Or a prayer…
That’s what the world was like before Christ became Incarnate. We didn’t know how to be human—we were senseless and isolated from God, because we kept choosing the sensory-deprived sickness of unatoned sin instead of the warmth of the burning bush. We wandered aimlessly through the desert for forty years; we floated on the waves for forty nights; we passed over the Passover; and we made God in our own images. We worshiped from the altar of greed and received bottomless cauldrons of meaninglessness in return for our offerings. We looked at God, right in the column of fire, and said, “Nice trick. What’s next?”
But then something miraculous happened. God stopped showing up in bushes, pillars of fire, and clouds and took a step back. Seeing the world for what it had become, the Great I AM thundered on high and shouted NO MORE. The Greatest, the ever-living, never ceasing Creator didn’t step away, he stepped in. Packaging himself in the only salve for the wound that humanity had become, God manifested himself in a world that reeked of poverty, of greed, of gluttony, of war, and did so in a place where no one would think to look: an empty barn outside of an Inn.
That night, humanity wasn’t just saved, it was reborn.
The Christ child’s first cries into the night created echoes throughout eternity, rebuffing the sounds of wailing souls, long parted this world yet remaining in nothingness; instead giving them a whisper of hope that they, too, would be remade and healed. God’s Incarnation wasn’t just a moment of birth, it was an advent of a new humanity, wherein we became something more than we were before. We reached out and touched the face of God through tears of joy, as God showed us the true worth of a human soul, brought sinless into the world. An infant that would grow to defy an empire, not by swinging a steel sword, but through wading through the crowds attached to a wooden cross. A being that was there in the beginning of all things, and suffered to deny the end of all things, to stymie death’s victory.
Our senses were brought to true life that holy night, that silent moment, as the heavens cracked open and poured grace over the churning world, forever changing the landscape of death into salvation.
That is the greatest gift we will ever receive. And the greatest gift we can give. The knowledge of Christ’s birth, life, and victory over death; the message of joy, laughter, and love of God. A gift that enacts the awareness to stop stepping over Lazarus to worship Pilate, and to start loving the Judas’ of this world because we are just as guilty. Guilty of neglect, of denial, of violence, and of self-righteousness. We don’t deserve the perfect love we’ve been given, yet the guilty will still receive grace.
Because God shows up.
Just as God always does. How long will it take for us to recognize how much we need God, how much God adores us? How long will we continue to espouse notions of faith while committing acts of heinous violence, racism, neglect and atrocities against our brothers and sisters? How long will we wait in silence while the world searches for superheroes on the screen, instead of a savior at the altar?
When will we say NO MORE, stepping back, and turning around, seeing that the only needs we have, are of those who have nothing? Those who live without so much. Without love, without friendship, without money, without hope. Without God. Because we have already been given our gift. We have enough. We just have to see it. When will our senses be restored?
Christ came into this world and showed us the way.
How long will we wait to show him we’re ready to follow…