The Incarnate Deity - Christmas Vignettes 07/12/20

Welcome to Christmas Vignettes 2020, a short daily reflection on Christmas and its meaning for Christians

How can the infinite touch the finite? How can the eternal break into the here and now? The Creator of everything, the one who sustains all of life, makes it rain, waters the fields and makes plants grow, the King of heaven and earth made his dwelling place among humankind. Can our minds even handle such a thing? 


Veiled in fresh the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity


One of the central mysteries of the Christian faith is that of the incarnation. How can it be that God became human? Well here’s another question. What would a living relationship with a transcendent God look like without the incarnation? What kind of relationship can an ant have with a human? And yet both ants and humans, theologically speaking, are in the same category of being: they are both creatures. But imagine being the God of the universe, transcendent in every manner, wholly separate and unlike anything or anyone else in all of the cosmos, which you created. And imagine desiring a true, authentic relationship with one of your creatures. 


What can an ant understand about a human? In what ways can they meaningfully communicate, collaborate, or negotiate? If even that is unfathomable, then how much more so a relationship between us and God. 


I am not saying I understand the incarnation. I said it’s a mystery. But I think we can know why. The Son of God became a man so that we might understand God. We could not traverse the infinite to be with him, so God came down to be with us. 


The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1.14


The incarnation is the ultimate condescension. We often think of that word in a negative sense, but all it really means is that God came down. There is no contempt in his act, only compassion. When you’re being condescending to someone, you are often speaking to make them feel small, to bring them low. But God came to lowly creatures to lift us up and make us significant. He condescended because if he didn’t, we could never cross the gulf between us and him. He did the only thing that could bridge us. 

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