by Zach Kincaid
He moves into place and pushes off the uterine wall, lodging his head in the cervix. He sinks lower, ready to break out, or in, like a thief.
Nine months ago it happened. 46 chromosomes and 30,000 genes gathered inside Mary. At day 14, a heartbeat thumped and 40 days brought fragile brain waves. All appeared normal. Arms and legs, fingers and toes replaced buds as he was woven together, fearfully and wonderfully. He kicked his legs and sucked his thumb. He slept and woke with his mom, and he knew her voice and her touch before he saw her face.
He pushes and pushes again, tunneling his way down the canal. He hears voices and sees a light pulsing in and out of site. His head feels a tinge of cold and Joseph gently pulls at him. Joseph cuts the umbilical chord and holds the swaddled clothes close to stop the bleeding. It's finished and it's just begun. Mary sits up, expecting. Joseph places Jesus in her arms. The baby roots to find his mother's breasts and collapses into her security.
Divinity draws a deep net. Though Jesus would be born into Jesse's shoot, he'd not be of it. Wrapping God up in the embrace of woman is one thing; forming God from single cells, through the gestation cycle is another. The profound mystery is that Jesus, fully God and man, of whom we borrow breath, breathes in and out, in and out, born inside of time and place. At that moment, the ancient myths came true: God grew legs and lungs and eyes and ears and heart and head. God became flesh and bone.