In Johnny Cash’s song ‘We are the Shepherds’ the chorus rings out ‘we had to come see him, we had to draw near’. The shepherds were the first people, after Mary and Joseph, who had the impulse and the privilege of drawing near to Jesus, to lean into his arrival in the world. Leaning into the manger is a classic trope in artistic renderings of the nativity. Leaning in and kneeling closely are symbols of curiosity, of wonder, of humility. It is a tableau that invites speculation on a first cause; God, in Jesus the newborn, the Messiah, first drew near to us so that we might draw near to him, and then he would draw us all into the nearness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To follow in the way of Jesus is primarily about getting nearer all the time: to overhear, to be in the shadow of, to touch the hem of, to feel the presence of this one named Jesus. For when we draw near, we are leaning into God’s grace and love radiating from the incarnate one in human form.
To be standoffish - to speculate on the nature of the child, to debate the origins of the conception, to apply our judgement to the those who have followed the child inadequately, is a distraction. It is to put up safety barriers, guard rails, filters, that prevent us from drawing near. This aloofness and hermeneutic of suspicion has the appearance of neutrality, but there is no such place. To be proximate, to be implicated, to be captivated and beguiled by Jesus, is what has created saints; what has shaped pervasive movements for good.
We can become obsessed with the failures and mistakes of the church; indeed, there is a humility and regret that need to cultivated, but it doesn’t disqualify the incarnation, or the Christ, or relegate the whole enterprise into one large repository of shame. No, there are many who have drawn near; in their time, and in their place, women and men who have chosen this good way remind us that we might have this same inclination. Who is this child? What did his life, death, and resurrection signify and accomplish? ‘We had to come see him, we had to draw near’. GS