The Incarnation – the Word become flesh, God become man, the Heavenly become Earthly – is without a doubt the one theological aspect which has gripped me over the years. Just think, the Creator of Heaven and Earth entering Creation, entering created Time itself, without causing the nuclear meltdown of the whole universe, it really incomprehensible. And not only that; that God throughout history has chosen to reveal Himself through the more common elements of his creation. God born in a stable (imagine the smell… and it wasn’t cinnamon or incense); baptism in dirty rivers; God nailed naked to a tree; partaking of the divine through wine and broken bread. That nothing in Creation, no matter how lowly or crude, is unfit for the presence of God to fill, convert and use – this is amazing. This is the Incarnation. This is why I love Advent – the prime time of the Christian calendar in which to focus on this inexplicable reality.
For more thoughts on the Incarnation, I will direct you to an article by NT Wright in Christianity Today, What is this word?
Reciting the Creeds is one reason I love liturgy. We said the Nicene this past Sunday (St Paul’s Episcopal). Good stuff.
“Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”
—from The Nicene Creed