The season has officially arrived. Time to bring out the
holiday decorations collected over the years, along with new ones purchased at
half price after Christmas last year—the special trappings that announce the
season of celebration. Trees are trimmed, candles lit, carols sung, lists made,
gifts purchased and wrapped, parties planned, church plays produced, turkeys
roasted, and every tradition of every family is carefully observed for the sake
of memories.
It would be tempting to write a critique about the
increasing secularization of our “holy days” traditions. But the deepening
layers of fluff that threaten to obscure Christ are a legitimate concern I’ll
save for another essay. Truthfully, the whole season with its traditions can produce
a warm feeling in me, a kind of rosy glow that makes me want to stuff cash into
the red pots of bell ringers, hug strangers, and maybe even “teach the world to
sing in perfect harmony.” That’s a good thing—or is it?
I’ve heard many Christmas sermons over the years, but none
has enlightened nor disturbed me more than the words of an unsaved woman I knew
some years ago. While helping decorate an AA hall for a holiday party, she made
the off-handed remark, “I just love Christmas. You know, the baby Jesus thing
and all that stuff. It gives me a warm feeling.”
I had forgotten that conversation until today. At the time,
I didn’t think much about her comment, except that she needed to know baby
Jesus grew up and died for her. Maybe I even said that, I really don’t
remember. Now I find her words unsettling in a different way. She had expressed
sentimental feelings that are uncomfortably close to what I, and probably other
Christians feel.
Sentimentality isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when it
masquerades as spirituality, it satisfies merely at a surface level, distorting
love and grace by diminishing them. The deep ocean of God
The memory of that comment resurfaced today in the form of a
question God posed to me: Do you understand the cost of the Incarnation?
Christians are (or should be) familiar with the basic
theology of the Incarnation: Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin
Mary. God became fully human. We recite it in our creeds, we read it in the
Bible, and hear it from the pulpit. We proclaim Christ’s divinity and humanity
based on the doctrine of the Incarnation. But do we really understand the price
the Son of God paid when He became the Son of Man?
I must confess, this morning during my prayer time, it
occurred to me I did not. As I prayed, I wondered if indeed it was even
possible in this life to fully comprehend the depth of sacrifice Jesus made
when He stepped out of eternity and into time.
In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis wrote, “… the
higher a thing is, the lower it can descend—man can sympathize with a horse but
a horse cannot sympathize with a rat.” I believe it was also C. S. Lewis who
observed that it is barely within the capacity of humans to understand how
amazing an act of condescension it would be for a man to become a lower
creature. It is one to thing to have a level of consciousness that enables one
to sympathize with a lesser creature, such as a rat, it is entirely another to
actually become one and experience all that rats experience, having left
the lofty realm of humanness and all that entails.
We can only imagine the possibility, since no man has ever
emptied himself of all his natural attributes, retaining only the knowledge
that he is still in essence a man, and taken the likeness and consciousness of
a lower creature—to be both that lower life form and man. Even though the chasm
between man and rat is incredibly broad, the analogy falls short because humans
and rats still share a common bond: they are both created beings. The analogy
cannot begin to express the magnitude of the condescension of the Creator in
becoming the creature.
It is the mystery of the Incarnation: God becoming one of
His creatures, yet still being God in essence. What Jesus left behind when He
condescended to the level of a dividing cell in Mary’s womb is what I have
never fully appreciated, and I say that to my sorrow, because the sacrifice of
Jesus on my behalf began long before the cross.
The entire
seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John records the last time Jesus prayed
with His disciples before His crucifixion. Next to the anguished prayer in Gethsemane , it is probably the most passionate prayer
ever uttered, and He prayed it not only for the small band of men gathered
around Him, but also for us:
“And now, O Father, glorify Me
together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world
was… Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may also be with Me where
I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me
before the foundation of the world (v. 5, 24).”
The inclusion of that request in His prayer reveals His
desire that we understand the level from which He had descended to walk among
humanity. He had willingly left the Father’s presence in a place of grandeur
and glory beyond human imagining, and emptied Himself of the attributes that
made Him God.
In Philippians 2:6-11, Paul attempts to describe the depth
Jesus’ sacrifice through the Incarnation:
Who, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to
death—even death on a cross! Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place
and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
He made Himself nothing. The All in All, the Alpha and
Omega, the Almighty became a creature, a lowly servant, and willingly
bore the cross—our cross, our sin, our shame. The question still reverberates:
do I understand the cost of the Incarnation?
I will enjoy the Christmas season. I will probably overeat,
spend a little too much, and observe all the traditions, sacred and silly. But
there will be a silent prayer offered continually from my heart: that I would
grow beyond sentimentality and press deeper into the heart of God where
emotions are transformed and become holy.
Moses
prayed to see God’s glory, and God granted his request, but only gave him a
glimpse. He covered Moses’ eyes with His hand as He passed telling him, “you
cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me and live.” But Jesus is the face of
God, and we are commanded to focus our attention on and our hope in Him. The
hand of God no longer blocks our view, only our own hands cast up in fear,
shame, or ignorance.
It may
well be that before “the mortal is clothed with immortality,” my vision will be
obscured for countless reasons. But His
prayer will ultimately be answered. Until that day, like Paul, I will seek to
grasp the width and length and depth and height of His love—to know the love of
Christ which passes knowledge, the love that compelled the Incarnation—and to
truly understand His incredible Christmas gift.
