There’s something about Christmas.
People from all walks of life suddenly start decorating their homes garishly, wearing garments they would otherwise never dream of endorsing, putting trees inside their houses instead of outside where they belong, singing in public, and making plans to cook a very specific set of foods. A whole host of traditions, coming down through the centuries across many different branches of thought, come into play. And to make sense of it all – how we got from a stable to a sleigh, from a carpenter to a tree – we have to indulge in a bit of cultural reverse-engineering.
Reverse-engineering is, in fact, a central theme of Advent: the God who dreamed up humanity became human. Creator became creature.
I struggled to think up something new and exciting to say in this piece, but in point of fact, I’ve got the exact same thing in my heart as many of you do: the sheer wonder that the Incarnation was ever allowed to happen in the first place.
If we think of Jesus as just a little baby, or even a Saviour on a cross, we’ve only told half the story. If we think of a man – a good, kind, love-in-action bloke, going about doing good – we’re still only part of the way there. If we look at Him as someone who struggled against the odds to live a completely perfect, Law-fulfilling life, we’ve still missed it.
It’s the Incarnation itself that fills me with wonder and awe. It’s like the CEO of the Lego corporation becoming a minifig – only a far more profound humbling. Because if we think of Jesus as God – as the Logos who sculpted the material universe, steersman of words and worlds – all of the things we are thankful for take on an additional, speechless, knee-crumbling WOW. For El to voluntarily become Emmanuel is to bridge an unfathomable gap. Have we lost the sheer scale of who God is? His otherness, His nebula-dwarfing grandeur, this Person who invented intelligence? That with no obligation, bar the demands of His own love-nature, He opted to redeem us – and from a position of vulnerability and relatability? That the tiny bub in the manger designed His own body, and every element around it?
What a fit the angels must have had when they got an inkling of this preposterous plan. ‘No,’ I see them shaking their shining heads, ‘oh, He can’t be serious. No!’
And God, whose dignity is so unassailable that no amount of squeezing Himself down into a zygote can ever lessen it, probably laughed to Himself and rubbed His hands with glee. If gentleness – properly, humility – is part of the fruit of the Spirit, then this was the ultimate ‘stooping’. And so the Incarnation itself displays to us part of God’s spirit-nature. We might be sinners, blind to the size of the One against whom we rebel, but His love cannot leave us to what we deserve. He will not remove ‘the lesson’ we’ve insisted on learning, but He will provide a way out of that danger. Personally.
If ever we needed proof that God is love, this is it. From the foundations of the cosmos, this was always in the works. God Himself would become a human … not even an adult human, a baby! And then He would do all the Things: go about doing good, as He saw what the Father wanted done. Reinterpret God’s intentions and motives as expressed in the Law and Prophets, for a generation so thirsty for word of Him that they were drowning in hopeful embellishments and anxious misconceptions. Heal the sick, reconnect the marginalised, empower the downtrodden, raise the dead. And, yes, die tortured on the Cross for our sins, as a man dies, in naked ignominy. The joy set before Him rendered that shame impotent. And for a Being whose nature is Love, there could be no greater joy than fully being Himself by fully redeeming those He loves. The very name Jesus means God saves.
Thank you, Rebekah! I love the idea of the incarnation encapsulating God’s humility, a fruit of the Spirit. This is a new idea for me, a fresh angle on the greatest story ever told, and I will ponder it this Christmas, as I wonder at the God who created embryos becoming one himself.
I’m glad you liked it. Truly I just can’t gush enough about our God!