A Christmas Word - Incarnation

It is hard to believe that another Christmas is just a few days away.  It seems that the older I get the faster Christmases come.  But what a wonderful time of the year!  The music of Christmas is always inspiring.  The excitement of Christmas is both exhilarating and tiring - concerts, programs, living nativities, shopping, card mailings, etc.  But the story of Christmas is always a blessing!  In fact, no matter how many times a person hears the story of the birth of the Lord Jesus, a fresher understanding always touches the heart. 


This "Christmas blog" is perhaps my favorite one to write during the course of the year.  Perhaps it is because I never grow tired of sharing the news that the angels delivered to some frightened shepherds that evening outside of Bethlehem.  "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord."  Was there ever a grander birth announcement ever given?  Was there ever a more special Child born?  His birth changed the course of the world and His birth continues changing the lives of millions of people around the world. 


If you have been following my blog over the years, you will remember that I have a strong fascination with that mystery known as the Incarnation - God becoming flesh.  John writes such amazing and thought-provoking words as he begins his gospel account: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning."  What John wants us to understand as he begins his grand retelling of the life of Jesus is that Jesus was God!  He was not just alongside of God.  He was not just an impersonation of God.  No, Jesus was God!  And he repeat that truth for our benefit with this powerful statement: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14).  In other words, friends, the key to understanding John's gospel is to believe that Jesus was God! 


A similar analogy is found at the very beginning of Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol" where he begins by informing us that "old Marley was dead, dead as a doornail."  Dickens then says that if we fail to understanding and believe that fact, then the rest of the story is totally irrelevant.  I believe that John would have us believe that as well about Jesus.


Over the years many writers have wrestled with the idea of the Incarnation.  Once such writer was C. S. Lewis.  In his masterpiece of Christian apologetics known as "Mere Christianity," Lewis helps us to understand what occurred that first Christmas so many years ago in Bethlehem.  Lewis writes: "Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life?  Well suppose you could really have brought them to life.  Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man.  It would involve turning the tin into flesh.  And suppose the tin soldier did not like it.  He is not interested in flesh: all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt.  He thinks you are killing him.  He will do everything he can to prevent you.  He will not be made into a man if he can help it.


"What you would have done about that tin soldier I do not know.  But what God did about us was this.  The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man - a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone.  The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a 'foetus' inside a Woman's body.  If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.


"The result of this was that you now had one man who really was what all men were intended to be: one man in whom the created life, derived from His Mother, allowed itself to be completely and perfectly turned into the begotten life.  The natural human creature in Him was taken up fully into the divine Son.  Thus in one instance humanity had, so to speak, arrived: had passed into the life of Christ.  And because the whole difficulty for us is that the natural life has to be, in a sense, 'killed', He chose an earthly career which involved the killing of His human desires at every turn - poverty, misunderstanding from His own family, betrayal by one of His intimate friends, being jeered at and manhandled by the Police, and execution by torture.  And then, after being thus killed - killed every day in a sense - the human creature in Him, because it was united to the divine Son, came to life again.  The Man in Christ rose again: not only the God.  That is the whole point.  For the first time we saw a real man.  one tin soldier - real tin, just like the rest - had come fully and splendidly alive." 


Now, I realize that it takes several readings of C.S. Lewis to fully grasp what he has written.  But I believe this is a remarkable description of something that is beyond our human understanding to fully grasp: God became a man; not just a man, but a baby.  The powerful God became a powerless baby.  The Creator became part of His creation. 


Friends, I trust you will take some time these next few days and just ponder that great mystery of God becoming man.  And He did it for you and for me.  I can assure you that you will not fully understand it - no one has, really - but your heart will be richly blessed by it. 


And so I want to wish each of you a most blessed and special Christmas. 


P.S. I have always thought it would be "cool" if Jesus would return on His birthday.  Perhaps this might be the year.