December 21, 2002

The Apostle John said, "and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

The Beatle John said, "and so this is Christmas."

Either way you hack it, I find this the most confusing of seasons. There are two GREAT miracles in the story of Jesus. Chronologically they are the incarnation and the resurrection. The average Christian understands the basic theological point of the resurrection (Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected to defeat that sin once and for all,) but I am not at all sure they get it about the incarnation.

I do think that the hustle and bustle of the season is a part of the reason they don’t understand it, but I do not want to turn this into another cliché filled rant on the commercialization of the holiday. I actually think it is deeper than that. Both great miracles represented a fundamental, or in business trendy speak "paradigm," change in how God and man conduct their relationship.

The change represented by the resurrection can be twisted in a manner that it does not require much of me as a Christian. I personally think that a sacrifice on that level requires an active and enthusiastic response, but I grant that it can and often is viewed as a "just accept it" type of proposition. "I have been forgiven, sin no longer has power over me, well, on with my life." I think the resurrection is far more complex than that, but I do not want to write about the resurrection today, I want to write about the incarnation.

"And who, though He was God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled Himself, taking on the form of a man…." You know those old Tom and Jerry cartoons where the cat manages to squeeze himself into a garden hose to follow the mouse? It is humorous because of how impossible it is, but it does give the very small beginnings of an understanding of what it must be like for God Almighty to become a man. Not so funny anymore, is it.

For centuries, God had been trying to work out a relationship with man on a "put Tab A in to Slot B" type of basis. But it just did not seem to work out like He hoped. (And don’t try and saddle me with some statement about God failing and therefore He is not omniscient, and not omnipotent, and therefore not God. He has some reason He needed a few millennia of apparent failure to set up the coming of Jesus. He’ll explain it to me someday, but for now I’ll be patient.) So God took a new approach – He squeezed Himself into a package that we could understand and interact with and walked up and said "Hi!" The defeat of sin that occurred in the resurrection God could have accomplished by speaking – He is that powerful. But that is not all He wanted to accomplish. He wanted a relationship with us, no, more, He wanted an intimate relationship with us. And that required that He become something we could touch, feel, and talk to.

Now, here is a question for you – Can you be intimate with someone (and I don’t mean just sex here) in a loud noisy situation? I just attended a big holiday party last night – hundreds of people, music, and not a single conversation that amounted to anything more pleasant noise. I was struck by how little intimacy there was in the room and I was saddened by it. Or a related question – Can intimacy be programmed? Well, I think God answered that question Himself by bothering to incarnate. He jettisoned the program for the humanity.

Don’t celebrate Christmas this year; celebrate the incarnation. Be intimate with God. Be intimate with those you love.