Yesterday or thereabouts, as those of us who seek and follow Jesus (and many millions of others by their cultural affinity with the Christian religion) chose to remember in this 21st Century, true humanity came to town.

Today there are Christmas trees, lights, sleds, chimneys, bearded men, elves, gifts, extended shopping hours, and many other distractions from the real birthday party.

But what is true humanity, and what is false or less-than-true humanity?

True humanity is what God designed it for and designed for it... if, that is, you grant the possibility that God designed the world and the human race and then gave a loose leash.

(If you do not even remotely grant this possibility, you are entitled to your human opinion but you may also be among the most arrogant people alive - if you insist there is absolutely no possibility that a higher being than yourself created our race and our world. Even if you are there, or somewhere in the middle, you are making a choice of faith, just like everyone else who believes or suspends their belief.)

In my understanding, true humanity is what God designed if God designed us and all this stuff around us - some of it degraded, some of it preserved.

Less-than-true humanity is an aberration, a volitional distortion by a creation that was strangely free to choose loyalty, disloyalty, selfishness, even rebellion against its creator. (How many of us as parents would tolerate this?)

The result of our human rebellion? We're still humanity, but less than we were cracked up to be.

When God (the creator) became Flesh (the created) as the Christian scriptures teach, this would have to be some kind of miracle by any definition.

There's no way scientists could map this on their flowcharts. That's why some of them do not believe. But some of them DO believe, because they realize there is more to life and truth than the flawed and finite yet fantastic tunnel-view of human science.

So rumor and story has it, that God came to town unlike any prior visit, this time in the vulnerability of human form, but not like Arnold Schwartzeneger as a muscular, grown, crouching-nude, pre-gubernatorial "Terminator" man, oh, no.

This was a coming of God to Earth in the vulnerable form of a newborn infant. Not all newborns make it. The elements, the imperfection of genetics, the stress of the birth canal, the frailty of proper nutrition and proper genetic development, the risk of "complications" during the birth experience outside (or even inside!) the context of modern medicine and technology.

This particular infant did make it. Far away from any neo-natal clinic with its technology on standby, in a decidedly lo-tech animal shelter, Jesus was born!

Was he God? Was he human? Was he an infant angel? Is he, as the Bible claims, the same entity who also created everything that exists? (Ref: Read the Gospel of John.) How can the creator fully enter into his or her own work, the finite framework of the creation itself?

Would this be an unprecedented miracle? Quite possibly. Is it unbelievable? Yes according to some, and no according to others.

Who would even dream to convincingly make this stuff up? Personally, I don't believe any human scheme would conjure up this particular conception, so to speak.

So... what?

You either believe that the creator became (incarnated as) the created being, or you don't believe it. Either way, it's an ongoing believing, not a once-for-all choice.

You actually get to change your mind, too, at will. People who believe this for decades can decide it's too crazy after all, can't possibly be true. Those who think it's bizarre can decide there's maybe something there to explore after all, this truth might be stranger and truer than all other fiction.

The key is to search, seek, ask, test the waters, read the story, knock on the door. There's a promise, from the one whose birthday we're celebrating, that the door will be opened.

The Bible teaches that Jesus' name is "Immanuael" which means "God with us." Not just moral support, but quite literally with us.

The birth of Jesus is a great mystery. It was predicted many times by God speaking through the prophets. I don't think we will ever fully understand its implications.

Even today many of us are looking for a different kind of Messiah to solve external problems, rather than the Messiah who came as Jesus to address our personal, internal problems of the heart. 

Merry Christmas! Because of the mysterious joy of Christmas, when "true humanity" came to town, the New Year might quite possibly be full of many things: happiness, challenge, empathy, servanthood, stretching and super-natural experiences.