The Incarnation: Imagine the Difference
Do you think God sacrificed more in the incarnation or in the crucifixion?
Most people tend to say it was the crucifixion. I don’t know. And I don’t know that there is a “right” answer in the Bible. But my guess is that it was in the incarnation; God coming to Earth as man was a bigger shot to His system than as man being put to tortuous death.
I by no means want to under emphasize the crucifixion. But I do want to focus on the sacrifice we often overlook in the incarnation. The reason we do this is simple: We can imagine crucifixion, but not incarnation. And, yes, I know, we can't imagine the separation from Father and Son at the crucifixion--but that separation is present too in the incarnation, isn't it?
We are all going to die. We have seen death. We are all familiar with suffering. We are all aware that innocent people are wrongly put to death even to this day. What Jesus went through on the cross is significantly worse than anything we’ve suffered, but at least we can imagine our own situations and then mentally multiply the pain upwards. This is probably why we're told to carry our cross--follow Jesus' in death--but never to incarnate--because we can't follow His lead there.
As such, we really have no way to imagine what is involved in God becoming a man. So we cannot multiply our own experience to better understand what Advent prepares us for. We’ve seen life to death, we’ve not seen God to Man. Because none of us have been in heaven, lived as God, and then given it all up to come to Earth as man, we have no personal point of reference for the incarnation.
We learn, however, that Jesus found the move incredibly significant. Before the first Christmas, the Father and the Son were in heaven together, equal in power and glory. Yet, with Christmas, Jesus “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ... emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”
The move on Christmas Eve from God to Man is so significant that though Jesus was God, he could no longer even comprehend equality with God. That ought to shatter any high and mighty notions men have of themselves--it certainly shows that we cannot comprehend what Jesus went through in the incarnation. It also ought to shatter notions that we can earn our way to God—we cannot even comprehend the differences, or the separation between us and Him.
Given this difference, try to imagine the first Christmas Eve in heaven. As at Gethsemane, the Son was likely contemplating the looming sacrifice: He was about to give up nearly all his power, all his glory, to be reduced to the form of a bond-servant. What was, that first Christmas Eve, stood in stark contrast to what was to be the next morning.
On Christmas Eve, he was fully God; on Christmas Day, he was a baby.
On Christmas Eve, he sat on the throne in heaven, ruling at the right hand of the Father; on Christmas Day, he lie in a manger, unable to feed without his mother’s help.
On Christmas Eve, the train of his robe filled the heavenly temple with glory; on Christmas Day, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes.
On Christmas Eve, the Seraphim stood by him, calling out to each other “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory;” on Christmas Day, he was surrounded by sheep and goats in a barn, because there was no room in the inn.
As we set out those nativity scenes--which get prettier and prettier each year, and thus less realistic--and as we look at the shepherds, and the donkeys, and the goats set by a porcelain, clean, baby Jesus, we should try to appreciate what is truly being depicted. It was not likely some idyllic, bucolic scene. The God of the universe was a helpless baby, in a cold, foul barn. He was surrounded by people so callous that they would not even give up a room so that a laboring mother could have a bed. Appreciate the miracle of Christmas by trying to imagine the extreme contrast from the night before.
While we can imagine barns, mangers, crowded hotels, baby deliveries, goats, shepherds and the like, it is impossible to grasp the night before all that. We haven’t seen what Jesus saw when he was in heaven. So we don’t really know what that move downward was truly like. He entered into the shadow, the mere copy, of heaven. He moved from the realm of clarity to that of confusion.
Why? To bring us the message that what we have in this life is not our only hope: where we’re going will be so much better. To proclaim good news, to let us know the way from shadows, confusion, and war to light, clarity, and peace—from these light, momentary afflictions, to the eternal weight of glory.
What then is our response? Celebrate this good news that Jesus brings from the Father on Christmas Day: "It will be so much better when we are home.” But, while we are still preparing for that celebration, remember: Jesus had to go in the opposite direction, with the opposite promise from the Father: “It will be so much worse there than here, my Son.”
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Thomas More
Beautiful Thomas...one of your very best!
Thank you.
Didymus
Posted by: Didymus | December 28, 2006 at 08:38 AM