In what way, or by what manner of working God changes a soul from evil to good—how he impregnates the barren rock with priceless gems and gold—is, to the human mind, an impenetrable mystery.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Before there was an earth at all, or sun, or stars in the splashed heavens, before matter came into being, for endless eternities before, as Genesis puts it in four initial words, “In the beginning God,” he has seen kingdoms and civilizations and earths and solar systems rise and wane. He, and he alone, knows the secret of history, the meaning of the mystery called rime. Shall he not know the hearts of men and women?
~Bernard Iddings Bell (1886-1958)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about Him, and cried out, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me.’”) For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.
~ from John 1
Breathe. Taste that? It’s freedom. Bright, clear, clean eternal air. And Oh beloved!, if you don’t, you can – if you would but believe.
There is a place (in the soul) on days like Christmas in this world, where the peace of His Presence simply astounds. To think that eternal G_d. This One who was, who is, and who is to come, chose in His eternal, Loving Triunity to create us. And this creation set into motion a plan wherein this same One who made us, became One of us.
What? Why? Who would ever want to do that?!
Only Love.
Words fail when trying to describe the mystery of what happened in the Incarnation. But the mystery is not in the unknowableness of how something like this could happen, rather it is more along the lines of why a perfectly perfect G_d would choose to introduce such a random element (humanity) to His creation.
Enter Love and it’s fruit: freedom.
Into darkness comes Light.
Beyond hatred grows Trust.
Among lies grows Truth.
A place saturated in desperation receives Hope.
Our diseased bodies are Healed.
Weakness is made Strong.
Those full of fear receive Courage.
Hearts of stone are given Hearts of Flesh.
A place of a multitude of sins becomes covered in an ocean of Love.
Firstly, the Incarnation was Jesus entering into humanity physically, and this we understand. However, there are some elements that do not immediately make themselves clear to our own limited understanding.
Secondly, Jesus became both a Man, and then both went back to His Father and stayed here. His Spirit is with us now. The very Person of Jesus is now with each of us more closely than He would have been if He simply stayed here in the localized body He now inhabits.
Then, here comes a part of the Incarnation we can miss. And in missing it, we may miss most of the point altogether. Jesus became a Man. And Jesus stayed a Man. And this Man (now The Son of man) has returned to the Father as the visible and fully real Firstfruit of the overall purpose of the Incarnation. He now holds the place of Priest and King and Saviour and Friend to those who believe in Him. However, this relationship is going to grow nearly infinitely on a Day to come for all of us.
This Man has gone to prepare a place for us to be with Him and His (our) Father, forever. This same One who spoke creation into being over six days, has been preparing the Kingdom for some two thousand years. It is being designed and built by The True KING of kings and LORD of lords to be the joyously complete home and habitation and capital of a Kingdom which will have no end. Those who will inhabit this place (us), will be completely at Home with its Builder.
It will not be some final “resting place.” No, it will be the opposite. While there will be no weariness, and the sense of restedness will never leave us (for time will then be our slave, not our master), the Kingdom will be the launching pad for our adventures into forever with Him. Said simply: Heaven is not an end. Heaven is a beginning.
Mystery? Yeah. Big? Yeah, bigger than a multiverse of amazing.
Can we see it? This Jesus is like what we will be like. The Incarnation was primarily that we would be given the right and made able to participate in the divine nature of G_d. Surely HE ALONE IS G_D. But this is the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation. He became like us, that we might be enabled (by His great Love and Grace alone) to be like Him. We were made for one sole purpose. We were made to be people so like G_d that we would be fully super-saturated in both His true Love and total freedom. We were made not only to make Him famous on this tiny little earth, but to spread His fame across an infinite frontier of a new creation.
Why did it He do it? Love and freedom. Love does the right thing always. Love wins, and therefore no bondage is possible. This is what it is to Live like Him. Total Love. Total freedom – forever.
This is very good news!
Now read part of Romans 3 and Ephesians 2, and the Incarnation comes into a gorgeous focus.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus…. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~ Romans 3:21-26 and Ephesians 2:1-10
