Human and Divine
Jesus
God made flesh
A man both Human and Divine
Sometimes I struggle to get my head around the concept
Sometimes it seems like double-dipping
Surely it would be easy
No unknowns for Him
Surely life as a person would be easy for God
One day
I expressed this thought in a theological tutorial
The professor paused
Looked at me
I don’t know what else he did
Perhaps he prayed
For a moment there was silence
I thought he was going to put me down
Laugh at me, tell me I was foolish
But he stopped
Held my gaze blocking out the rest of the room
He said something like
Denise
Silent pause
He was God
Silent pause
It was the way he said it
My brain lit up
Flicking all the synapses
Running through the countless seeds of God as I know Him
Creator of the heavens and earth
Setting the moon to influence oceans
Scattering stars
Conducting the heavens and their orbits
Measuring my tears
Weighing my heart
All knowing,
All seeing,
Ever present
All powerful
Divine Omniscient
All crammed into
Contained
In the flesh and bone body
Of a helpless baby
Suddenly
I got it…
Tears welled up in my eyes
I will never forget that moment
I didn’t know it at the time
I was on a Journey of Comprehension
It began 40 something years before
I was aged 8 I think
I contracted Polio
Afterwards I was told
You had polio
You Survived
You Recovered
We will not speak of it again
We didn’t speak of it again
We ignored it as if it had never happened
No evidence could be seen
None was watched for
I lived a ‘normal life’
I know now there had been damage done
Tiny Neural connections were destroyed or damaged
Inferior connections had to take the full load
Damaged nerves sprouted smaller offshoots
None of these lasted the full distance
The tiredness I’d known since my 30’s intensified
Flu like symptoms developed and remained
Pain returned
Muscles now slowed and failed
Trying to build them up made things worse
New sprouts died
Secondary nerve supply failed
Having developed a multitude of skills
Many degrees of knowledge
I find myself
Unable to use most of it
We all get tired
We all get forgetful
We get aches and pains as we get older
We have muscles die
We all get weaker
We all get clumsy
We all choke and have trouble swallowing
Add all of that to a body damaged by Polio
I can still walk, but not far
I can still harness thoughts to write, sometimes
I can still care for myself a little at a time
I can still do things but much, much less
Than once upon a time
I am capable of so much more than I am able
Thus I am disabled
Thus I have a tiny glimpse
Of Christ Jesus
God
All that He is
Reduced to a tiny human body
Human and Divine
A Baby
Unable to even feed Himself
Vulnerable beyond measure
Weakened beyond comparison
Potential to do all
Limited to doing nothing
Until He grew
As a Man
He loved unconditionally
Did He hear everything?
Did He feel all pain?
Did He smell all Fear?
He held together
Human and Divine
He held side by side
Human and Divine
We are incapable of understanding all He is
And yet we do know
Jesus
Submitted to this
Slowness of Being
To reach us where we are
Perhaps to encourage us
Not to reach for the stars
Rather to reach for Him
Words and Pictures © Denise Stanford 2011
Within the Vine 