“You are laughing at me, aren’t you,” my friend quipped. 

I wasn’t actually. I was just smiling. But I could understand how he would view it as inappropriate. He had just shared his distress, concluding that nobody cared, and that nobody was listening. 

“I’m not laughing,” I said. “I care, I am listening, and I don’t think any of this is particularly funny. I just find it interesting that you think of me as nobody.” 

I had a body. I was present. And, thanks to our internet connection, I was there. I watched his lips quiver with sadness and fear. I captured the sound of his voice with my ears. My brain processed the sounds, matched them to the language and context I knew, and the life I had experienced. It fired information back to my mouth and tongue to form a verbal response. It sent other information to small muscle groups in my face and hands to form a non-verbal response. I had a body. I was present. 

But I don’t believe it was me that he considered “nobody.” He was missing the other senses. The aroma of onions that still lingered on my clothes from dinner. My hand upon his as we prayed. Without those, when present details are left to our tired imaginations, the physicality of our lives can seem incomplete.

Our longing for fully embodied relationships in these COVID times is really an homage of sorts — a universal need for connection across the senses that’s as old as our collective existence. I believe this is why so many of the faiths that are practiced in the world have icons and/or idols; it is why they burn incense and offerings. We need a deity who shares our space. We need a sensory experience of the divine; or at least an approximation of it. We need a God who is embodied.

When incarnation happens, God is no longer “nobody.” God becomes present. Real. Here. 

At Advent, this is the God we pray for. At Christmas, this is the God who arrives. And, after a year like 2020, this is God who we sincerely hope is coming again.

—Pastor Matthew Johnson