1st Sunday of Christmas

God Born into Trans Flesh, Like Me

Isaiah 63:7-9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10-18; Matthew 2:13-23

As a child, I remember hearing the story of the birth of Christ for the first time. It always felt like magic to me. Animals followed a star, angels appeared from the heavens, and three rich men came from nowhere to kneel before a baby and declare, “All is well.” They brought him gifts fit for royalty.

Growing up in an evangelical Pentecostal Spanish-speaking church, we brought that story to life every Christmas. My mother played Mary once, her round belly hidden under layers of fabric. In one swift motion, her stomach flattened, and a baby doll wrapped in a white sheet from Target appeared in her arms. The crowd gasped. The baby glimmered in the light above the burgundy carpeted pulpit. The congregation erupted in praise, shouting, “¡Nuestro Salvador ha nacido!” Our Savior is born.

When the lights dimmed for the next scene, the small sanctuary held a silence that felt holy. Behind the pulpit, the cast scrambled to change costumes in the cramped office where the offering was usually counted. I sat in the pews, tears streaming down my face. I could not explain why I cried every time, only that something in the story reached inside me.

How could anyone be born this perfectly? How could a star shine so bright, and strangers come bearing gifts just because you exist? I wanted to believe it could be true for me too. That God could be born into a body like mine. But even as a child, I felt the weight of something different inside me, something that made me quiet, something I kept hidden like a secret between me and God.

“It was fitting that God should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” — Hebrews 2:10

As I got older, I learned that perfection was not only expected of Jesus, it was demanded of me. Being part of the pastor’s family meant I was watched. People assumed our family carried special favor from God. Every smile, every prayer, every mistake felt magnified. I thought holiness was something we could earn if we followed all the rules and stayed pure. But the moment I was outed, all of that collapsed.

I lost friends. I lost my place in the church. I lost the safety of belonging. I wondered if this was what Jesus felt when the world turned against him. Hebrews says Christ shared in our flesh and blood, that he learned obedience through what he suffered. Maybe holiness isn’t about being flawless. Maybe it’s about how deeply we live through pain and still choose love.

“Since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things.” — Hebrews 2:14

By the time I turned twenty-one, I had been prayed over, fasted for, and rebuked so many times that I thought deliverance might kill me. The church I gave my childhood to had become the place that suffocated me. I wasn’t a confused woman. I was a man in a body that felt like a cage. Leaving didn’t feel like rebellion, it felt like what I had to do to save my relationship with God.

When I left, I felt close to Jesus in a new way. I related to the story of a man who carried truth in a world that refused to understand him. I related to a Savior who was rejected by his own and still chose love.

And in that leaving, something happened.

Not long after, I found a queer organization that welcomed me, even with my conservative edges and the pieces of faith that hadn’t healed yet. They didn’t care about my past or how imperfect I was at unlearning. They made room for me anyway. It felt like the first time someone had opened a door instead of closing one.

Not long after that, I met a trans woman who carried joy like it was her birthright. She walked into a room, and it changed. Her laughter filled the space. She moved with the kind of peace that comes from knowing you belong to yourself. I didn’t know it then, but I was seeing God in motion. Not the God of punishment and shame, but the God who shows up in freedom and joy. That night, I went home and prayed. I asked God if this was what incarnation looked like: holiness alive in human flesh.

“It was no messenger or angel, but his presence that saved them.” — Isaiah 63:9

A week later, I joined a protest. Someone handed me a drum, an orange Home Depot bucket, and two sticks, and told me to hit it. I did. The rhythm echoed through the streets. The chants rose like hymns. “Hey hey, ho ho, transphobia has got to go.” Around me were people the church had warned me about: queer, trans, nonbinary, people of every color and kind, and yet I had never felt closer to God.

The air was alive with praise, even if we didn’t call it that. It was breath and sound and resistance, all woven together. It was worship. For the first time, I understood the incarnation, not as a faraway miracle but as something alive in us. God was there, marching beside us, breathing through us, alive in trans flesh.

“Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” — Hebrews 2:18

That day, I realized that God’s presence isn’t trapped inside churches or traditions. It moves through us, through our suffering and joy, through every breath that refuses to be silenced. God became trans flesh like me.

To be transgender means that your gender identity does not align with the sex you were assigned at birth. But the word “trans” itself means across, beyond, through. It speaks of movement, of transformation, of crossing over from one state of being into another.

Theologically, that is the heart of incarnation. God crossed from divinity into humanity, from spirit into flesh, from untouchable to tangible. God became love in motion, love with skin, love that bleeds and heals. God became transfigured. God became trans.

When I think about Christmas now, I don’t see a perfect manger scene anymore. I see God born into a dirty place, a small cave filled with the stench of animals, straw matted with dung and sweat, the air thick with breath and earth. I see a brown baby born into danger, a family turned away, a mother aching, a father trying to believe. That is what incarnation really is, God showing up where there is no room and making room where there was none.

And yet, there was hope. Hope in a mother holding her newborn close while soldiers searched for him. Hope in a father willing to protect what he could not fully understand. Hope that this fragile life would grow into something that would save them both. They were surviving and fighting for their baby’s right to live, to love, to be.

The world wasn’t ready for Christ then, and it isn’t ready for us now. But God keeps coming anyway. God keeps becoming anyway. God keeps living in trans flesh like mine, like hers, like ours. Because incarnation didn’t end in Bethlehem. It continues every time truth takes on flesh, every time love refuses to die.

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” — Psalm 148:1

When I praise now, I do it differently. I drum until my palms ache. I breathe like prayer is air itself. I live fully, knowing that my existence is testimony. I remember that Christ’s body, like mine, carried scars, and that those marks were not signs of shame but the fingerprints of resurrection.

Into this Christmas season, I carry the story of a God who became love in flesh, who became transfigured through suffering and grace, who crossed every boundary to remind us that all flesh is holy. God became trans flesh like me. God became flesh like them. God became flesh like us.

That is the miracle I hold. A God still being born through us all.

Zayn Silva is a transgender Puerto Rican and Black man from New York City, a preacher, activist, and digital minister devoted to building communities grounded in fierce love, justice, and belonging. He serves as the Digital Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, leading digital strategy, storytelling, and community engagement for one of the nation’s most inclusive and justice-driven congregations.

A Ruling Elder at First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, Zayn serves on the Commission on Ministry, the ACQ+E Committee for LGBTQIA+ Advocacy, and the Admin Manuals and Operations Team for the Presbytery of New York City. His ministry bridges faith, technology, and liberation—helping churches imagine digital spaces as sacred spaces for connection, healing, and transformation.

Zayn is also the Vice Chair of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP) vs. the U.S. Department of Education and the founder of Transalike, a nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting trans and queer individuals with Christ. Through his work in faith and activism, Zayn continues to create pathways for all people to experience God’s radical love and inclusion.