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'Tis the Season

Writer's picture: Justin Scoggins, Th.D.Justin Scoggins, Th.D.

It’s that time of year again. Where we celebrate the holidays and gather with our families and friends, open gifts, drink weird peppermint concoctions, and God forbid…eggnog. What Christmas is and what it has become are two vastly different things. But it is a time of year where the world stops becomes hopeful for a better tomorrow. It’s also a time, for Christians, where we celebrate that momentous occasion of the birth of Jesus. His birth set the world on a completely different trajectory. Born a little baby in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, we take time to think of what it all means from a moment in time in the past, to our present, and into the future of eternity. Let’s take some time and dwell and think about what the incarnation of Jesus means for us and the world. From creation to new creation.


Incarnation is the act of becoming clothed with flesh. Much like putting on a coat. Kind of the same way Paul tells us to put on Christ in Colossians. We are to be clothed in Christ and as we are, we are a vital part of the incarnation to the world around us. For those of us who follow Jesus Christ, it’s the most significant part of the Christmas story; that the invisible, bodiless God who existed from before time took on a human body and human nature. He became His creation. The “Logos,” through whom all things were made, becomes part of His own creation. As it says in an early Christian creed, “... and He was Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.” The God who, once, only had one nature, now has two—both human and divine— a single Person…but now having two natures, two wills and two energies. The breaking of a bearer to marry the world to the heavenlies. Iconography does a wonderful job of creating this liminal space in how the writers of these icons would put the birth of Jesus in an almond shape, signifying the marriage of earth and heaven. But why did God do this?


The view of prominent Church fathers like Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint Isaac the Syrian, and others is that the Incarnation was an act of love towards mankind. They say that even if humanity had never fallen, God in His love for humankind would still have become man. Paul makes this very thing evident in a couple of his letters to the Churches. In Romans 8:29-30, St Paul says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.” In Ephesians 1:4-5, he says, “God chose us as His own in Christ since before the foundation of the world to set us apart for Him that we may become blameless in His sight. He lovingly predestined and planned for us to be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His kind intention and good pleasure of His will…” It’s an awesome thing to ponder, just as Mary did in Luke chapter 2 when she “pondered these things in her heart”. Since before the beginning of time, God predestined that humanity would be united to Him through His Son’s Incarnation and brought to fullness and completion in Him.


It was always God’s plan to live among us as one of us, amid our languages and cultures…to make Himself known to us within our context and to unify our flesh with His divinity…adopting us as His children. God created us to deify us—to give all of Himself in jubilant love…granting the life of the uncreated Holy Trinity to humanity as a manifestation of His glory. The Incarnation isn’t just a remedy for something gone wrong; but rather, it launches the union between God and His creation for which all things were created. It is the grand gesture of reconciliation and His willingness to do whatever it takes to make that possible for us.


However, we do have to acknowledge that because humankind fell, God’s love toward all His creation was expressed even more explicitly by the things He in His Incarnation would now have to encounter and endure. When God’s Son (the very source of all life) took on human flesh for Himself, He would also have to conquer death by dying, reopening the gateway for all people to have union with God and for the entire cosmos to be transformed and restored to life in Him. This is why I stress the story and narrative of Scripture as Creation to New Creation. There should be a larger role of the fulfillment of all things in Christ beginning with His incarnation. Our salvation doesn’t merely come about from His dying on the cross, but rather, through the whole story of things that Jesus Christ did as the God-Man. The fullness of God’s salvation for us is about so much more than just the singular event of the crucifixion, although that is the climax of the story. Salvation encompasses God’s unconceivable mercy injected into the flow of human history as the God-Man Jesus Christ (Love enfleshed/incarnated/being with us), who transformed human flesh to experience transcendence with Him in heaven.


With the incarnation as our starting point, there is something wonderful about the flesh of God, that after His crucifixion and resurrection, He carried human flesh with Him to be glorified at His Father’s side. Then from there, God send’s His Holy Spirit to Incarnate (to enflesh/incarnate/be with) His loving presence in us and through us to the world. We can clearly see that the incarnation isn’t merely about that event that happened in a manger some 2000 years ago. The very matter of flesh has been elevated to something of supreme worth. Our humanity is worth the self-emptying of Christ. It’s the shock of the gospel.


We shouldn't look at the stars, like we did when we were kids, and wonder how far it is to God. Is God far away from us? Is He out of our grasps? Can we even approach Him? If God had remained entirely outside our world, He would be a mere spectator. If He were merely a God who created, and then withdrew, He might be mighty, but He couldn’t be love. Who could love a God so remote when our lives are filled with such suffering? But with God’s very purposeful intention, His Son, Jesus, became one of us, lived among us, worked among us, suffered with us, and even celebrated life events with us. And then, through His Holy Spirit, He becomes enfleshed/incarnated/with us in each one of us as well. All to win humanity’s hearts and unite us with Him. Human and divine locked in the tangible dance of mercy and grace because Christ was once a babe in a manger.


As we enter these final weeks before Christmas, where we celebrate God’s incarnation—His dwelling among us as one of us…we are called to prepare ourselves to be united with Him anew. If we are becoming united with Him anew, then let’s become extra mindful of His plea to us, “Just as the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you”. God calls us, His beloved, His bride, to become one with Him in His very purposeful mission to win the hearts of the people around us, to continue Incarnating (enfleshing/being with) His presence into the midst of our surrounding communities, to lovingly draw them to Him. (As I am lifted up, I will draw all men to me.) So, don’t just celebrate with the mere words, Christ is born! But allow Him to be enfleshed (Incarnated) in you, become unified with Him in His mission of love to mankind, and Glorify Him! This is what peace on earth and goodwill towards men looks like.


Sufjan Stevens has my favorite version of my favorite Christmas song; “Oh Holy Night”. It is theologically rich and awe inspiring of the incarnation of Jesus. “The thrill of hope” is my favorite line of all time. It is the thrill of hope to a weary world. That hope that humanity matters because the One who created matter became matter to redeem matter, so that we could be restored and reconciled to Him and His flesh. The thrill that things are different because we serve a God who is different. In that difference, in the liminal space of His incarnation, he married all the grandeur of heaven to the goodness of earth, even though we chose everything but Him.

And He still chooses us despite ourselves. He will always choose to be incarnated in us, through us, and for us. Because His love is the essence of who He is and what we get to experience because He was at one time, a baby laid in a manger. Innocent and vulnerable, all to redeem and reconcile us. It really is amazing.


Sufjan Stevens 'O' Holy Night' below.






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Artwork credit: The Last Supper, Sadao Watanabe ,1977

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