On the Incarnation
NASA's James Webb space telescope captures stunning image of Southern Ring Nebula
The title of this blog comes from a book Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in the 4th century, wrote in response to the teachings of Arius. Arius claimed that Jesus was not in fact God but only the first and best of creation. Thus, as Arius put it so succinctly, “there was a time when the Son was not.” Athanasius challenged Arius on just that point.
We have sentimentalized Christmas, as you well know. Even devout Christians tend to romanticize the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Much of the Christmas music we hear reinforces this sentimentality. “Away in the Manger” comes to mind as one glaring example. “No crying he makes” is just too much.
The Early Church Fathers viewed Christmas very differently. Their interest was in the meaning of the Incarnation, not the romanticized events surrounding it.
Rather than thinking exclusively of a baby sleeping in a manger, animals standing in a stable, shepherds sitting on a hillside, magi traveling from Persia, and angels singing God’s praises, however important all that was, the Church Fathers pondered the wonder, beauty, and power of the Incarnation itself.
God came as Jesus, a human being. God entered the human story to make himself known, to repair the damage done in the Fall, to atone for sin, to renew the divine image in humans, and to restore the entire created order. The death and resurrection of Jesus has no real meaning apart from the Incarnation.
The disciples only realized the significance of the Incarnation after the resurrection. During Jesus’ earthly ministry they tried to make sense of him, as unusual as he was. They called him Rabbi, they thought him a miracle-worker and a prophet. They even proclaimed him Messiah. But then Jesus died on a cross, which disabused them of their hopes and expectations. “We thought he was the one to redeem Israel.”
Jesus failed. Or so it appeared. A Messiah doesn’t hang dead on a cross. A Messiah defeats the enemy; a Messiah wins; a Messiah rules. A Messiah is supposed to be more like Caesar Augustus or Alexander the Great or Hercules, not like Jesus, an obvious failure.
Until, that is, the resurrection, which challenged the disciples to revisit the entire story of Jesus’s earthly life. Only then did they realize that Jesus, the Christ, was God come as a human being to defeat the real enemy, which was not simply the evil empire of Rome but the sin in every human being and every human institution on the planet.
Thomas, the “doubter,” confessed what the disciples came to believe. “My Lord and my God,” he said to Jesus. He used the sacred name for Jesus, the man whom they had known as a human being for some three years. Jesus was the Lord God. God came to earth as Jesus Christ.
It is hard to fathom. Tertullian, in fact, argued that the absurdity of it testifies to its truthfulness. No one could make up such a thing. We think of God as being the best of humanity, and then some. More brains, more braun, more authority, more glory. Jews demanded signs, Paul wrote, Greeks valued wisdom, and Romans, I would add, craved power. But Jesus, the Son of God, was born in a stable and died on a cross. Paul proclaimed: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
God came as Jesus Christ. Such an Incarnation—weakness, foolishness, powerlessness, ordinariness—is how God chose to act to redeem the world.
The church fathers struggled to make sense of it. We can see it in the images they used and the ideas they expressed. Take Clement, bishop of Rome, who wrote around the year 95: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Scepter of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding him.”
The unknown author of The So-Called Letter to Diognetus could hardly contain his sense of wonder over the surprising way God came as Jesus Christ, not only as a human being but as a humble human being. “Now, did God send [his son], as a human mind might assume, to rule by tyranny, fear, and terror? Far from it! He sent him out of kindness and gentleness . . .”
The first great biblical scholar in the history of the church, Origen (d. 254) confessed Jesus Christ as the first and only manifestation of the divine splendor that human eyes could actually see without going blind. “This brightness falls softly and gently on the tender and weak eyes of mortal man and little by little trains and accustoms them, as it were, to bear the light in its clearness . . .” Origen speculated that Christ was like an identical copy of the incomprehensible God, only made smaller so that Christ could be comprehended. In this way “those who were unable to perceive and behold the immense one could yet be confident that they had seen it when they saw the small one, because this preserved every line of limbs and features and the very form and material with an absolutely indistinguishable similarity.”
Back to Athanasius. As he stated, God “saw” humans wasting away, “saw” human corruption getting worse, “saw” the law being violated time and again, “saw” death reigning supreme over sinful humans. In a final flourish of rhetorical brilliance, he concluded, “All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own.”
God became human. These early Christian writers believed that they were witnessing the glorious condescension of the divine splendor and greatness. As they expressed it, big became little, strength weakness, rich poor, and wise foolish. Providence chose personhood; power embraced pain; sovereignty gave way to suffering. It was as if all the light of the universe—galaxy upon galaxy of blazing brightness—was reduced to the flicker of one candle without suffering any diminution, without becoming less radiant than it was before. It was as if all the weight of the universe was reduced to the lightness of a feather, light enough to tickle the palm of your hand, without becoming less heavy than it was before. The divine light and weight became hidden and concealed. The Son of God became an embryo and nine months later was born in a stable, perfectly, bloodily, painfully human. But no less divine than before.
This is why we celebrate Christmas.