“Good is the Flesh” is the name of a Brian Wren poem that composer Jack Redmond put to music. Good is the flesh. We must believe that. Jesus becoming one of us is God’s way of saying we’re worth saving. As I get older and my flesh sags, it’s important to me to remember that my flesh is good, that Jesus came to earth to save not just my soul, but all of me, including my sagging flesh. But many don’t believe their flesh is good, so they either treat their flesh like an amusement park or, as it begins to sag, they treat it like a construction zone. Christmas means that our flesh and blood matters.
The Scottish theologian T.F. Torrance argued that at Christmas Jesus enters every part of our diseased and alienated humanity and heals and transforms it. And this doesn’t stop with Christmas. Jesus takes us with him to the cross. And then he takes our healed and transformed humanity into heaven at his ascension. Thus, our humanity (and not just an idealized form of it) has ascended into heaven. That’s why I can say without hesitation that God loves your flesh and God loves my flesh. Good is the flesh. When I see the world as it is, I have to force myself to remember Torrance’s insight. No matter how fragile and degraded the flesh, Jesus healed and transformed all human flesh at Christmas.
When I was a priest in East Cleveland, there were three Christmases in a row when walking into the sacristy on Christmas Eve I found the window broken out, the cabinet pried open, and a couple of bottles of communion wine missing.
This amused me. It never amused the Altar Guild.
But think of the absurdity of the thief’s act. He had to shinny up our drainpipe, break the window, climb through, and then pry open locked cabinets. There were silver and gold vessels for the taking and all he took were two bottles of wine. I joked after the third time that it was probably Santa Claus. Since he didn’t find any milk and cookies waiting for him, he took the wine. I thought it was funny, but I laughed alone.
That’s when I noticed the thief’s blood. It was all over the counter near the broken window. It seems he paid in blood for the two bottles of wine. The Altar Guild was outraged. “We’ll all get AIDS if we touch that.” But I thought to myself: “Maybe only if we drink it. We catch a lot more than AIDS when we drink Jesus’ blood in the Eucharist.” So, I cleaned up the blood and boarded up the window once again.
When Christmas came next year, my people had a plan. They were going to catch the thief. They organized a vigil for the sacristy. I suggested we put a bottle of wine on the window ledge with a note saying: “Merry Christmas! Drink up! You’ll catch what we caught.” But he didn’t come that year. The Grinch who stole the Christmas wine had either been scared off by the vigil, found better pickings elsewhere, or stayed away because of the blood.
I like to think it was because of the blood. Maybe he didn’t think two bottles of wine were worth shedding blood? Maybe he saw a deeper theological meaning to his act? That’s what I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe he came to mass that night and shared the Christmas miracle with us. Maybe he was in my confirmation class the next year? Some of those guys looked edgy. Maybe he drank of the blood of Jesus and realized that his own flesh and blood were worth something now?
Good is the flesh.
Scott Benhase is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.
