I find myself reaching back to remember once-familiar words or concepts now almost forgotten. I think to ask someone and then remember that those who might recall have entered another life and the words have not been remembered. For one such word I can only replace what once was a vital concept in a dying language with a hyphenated compilation of English words: something like, treating-a-representation-of-a-living-being-as-if-it-were-alive-and-related-to-you. It is a cultural commitment that enables spiritual formation of a sacred value.

Dolls are never left undressed, scattered, or thrown into a box. Toy horses or animals do not lie about or get left outside. At the end of play, certainly at the end of the day, everything, everybody, is cleaned, clothed, and put to rest, covered and warm. When children awake, they “awaken” the toys.

A toy, a learning tool, is treated as part of the family, so that from the time we can walk, we do not understand ourselves to be more important than those with whom we have relationship. There is nobody to whom we are not related. We participate in the relational care of all that God holds sacred.

The Word, this Child-of-the-God-Who-Is-Humble, our text today describes enters into the vulnerability of circumstance and human response by consenting to being born. This Child-of-the-God-Who-Is-Humble is the physical reality of the character of God. This Child-of-the-God-Who-Is-Humble is born related to everybody. When is the Incarnation? Is it the moment of birth? Or when the child assumes the loving relational care of all whom God holds sacred?