Incarnation Thoughts

Christ’s last night in heaven: “I’m ready Father.” “Son, the next thought you’ll have will be that of a baby’s. All memories of this home, this glory, this beauty-will be gone. They will be replaced with filth, cold and pain. The first breath you take will pull you on a course to your death. It will take years before you’ll remember this conversation, this arrangement. One day, parents holding your hand, you will pass a blind beggar calling out to God. You’ll look back, suddenly knowing it is you he is calling to. Then it will dawn on you; who you are, who I am and where home is. That moment will be the loneliest of all. The morning you realize how far away you are from home.”

…Then, finally then, it happens. The deep magic begins. The single most important moment in the history of all the galaxies. In the dead of night when the world will least suspect. In the dead of human history when even the most devout had almost given up all hope. When evil had apparently finally been conceded victory. The world is at it’s darkest, this hour before the first Christmas. Then, with only a mother’s panting gasp and a newborn’s cry, God suddenly enters into our history…to rescue us. Not in thunder and smoke, or even on a white horse, but in quiet, fragile, helplessness, in a cold, dank corner of the world…God becomes not man, but first child…All the angels stand their post and hold their breath…And now we are not alone. He really did remember. God will now be forever with us.

“Hello earth. This is my Son. You will call Him Jesus. I am…giving Him to you. To do with Him as you will. And I am giving Him to you in the most vulnerable way. I am trusting my only begotten Son to you. To you. He will now breathe your air, totally unable to protect Himself. You will hold Him tonight, you will choose to receive Him. You will decide to love Him. This is my Son, in whom I am deeply and wonderfully delighted. Take care of Him.”

A fragile crying baby and not a grown man, so none of us could say that He doesn’t understand our life. On earth so no one could claim He didn’t breathe our air. In the center of mankind so no one could say He was above us, in humility so no one would feel bullied by Him, with no protection, so no one would ever be able to say that He didn’t feel alone, in common, desperate, impoverished surroundings, so no one could say He didn’t feel want, …choosing to enter the race of men and gradually learn who He was. With questions, with lack of understanding. The God of the universe, taking on the form of man, to progressively learn to eat, to sleep, to thirst, to feel tiredness. For you. For me.

By John Lynch.