John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Another brush with celebrity story. Back in 2009 I was waiting in the airport in Portland, Oregon for a flight home. I had attended a pre-convention planning meeting when I was still working with the LWML. Sitting at the gate, there was a bit of commotion as people were pointing and staring at someone, but I didn’t see who they were all interested in so I just went back to my reading. I was flying Southwest, which means there is no assigned seating. I noticed an aisle seat that people were looking at, but they all kept passing it by. When I got to that row, there was a very small lady sitting next to the window. I asked her if anyone was sitting with her. She said no, so I sat down. We made some small talk. She said she was going to speak at a women’s conference in Denver, which was where I would make my connection to Dallas. I told her I was working with a Christian Women’s organization planning a convention in Portland. She said she was a Christian, too. I asked her how she got in to being a speaker.  She said it was because of her popularity from her television show. I didn’t know it, but I was sitting next to a celebrity. I had never seen her show. I was sitting next to Amy Roloff from the show, “Little People, Big World.” I had a delightful visit with a famous person even though I didn’t know she was a famous person at the time.

We have a thing about famous people. People want to know all about them. When someone tells us that they know a celebrity personally, our first question is usually, “Wow. What’s she really like?” The tabloid press makes its money off of our desire to know the rich and famous.

That said, many famous people don’t want to be known. They complain about the paparazzi’s relentless intrusion in their lives. They disguise themselves when out in public. They protect the privacy of their families. When asked a very personal question by a reporter, they may end the interview or bolt out of the room.  It is ironic that famous celebrities often don’t want to be recognized or known.

God wants to be known. Christmas is about the lengths to which God will go to be known and loved. When John says, “The Word became flesh,” he is describing Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, as God’s premier self-revelation in human form. In other words, if you want to know this God, who so deeply wants to be known, then look at Christ. To see Jesus is to see God. “Whoever has seen me,” Jesus once told his disciple Philip, “has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Retired Lutheran Bishop Stephen Bouman of the ELCA tells of standing behind an altar in a small crypt chapel of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, in the Holy Land, the place where Mary heard that she was going to have a baby. He saw some Latin words carved into the altar: “Verbum caro factum est,” “The Word was made flesh.” But then he noticed that there was one other little word in Latin. That word was: h–i–c. Hic. “Here.” “Verbum caro hic factum est.” “The Word was made flesh here.” Probably whoever authorized that inscription meant it to refer to that specific location.  but in reality, the Incarnation means God became flesh here on earth, for all of us. The Incarnation means that we can speak of the “hicness” of God, the nearness or “hereness” of God. Incarnation means that God walked with us on earth. We were saved right here on earth. He came here, for us.

Merry seventh day of Christmas.