4th Sunday of Advent 20.12.20 The Incarnation
God kept His promise of sending a messiah but did so in a way that no one anticipated or would have dared to anticipate.
He came Himself as the Messiah! It was not to be just another outstanding man, but God Himself this time.
This is a fact so dazzling that we are still coming to terms with it.
Believers have to deepen their understanding of this event; unbelievers find it a stumbling block - they do not think it likely that God would do that.
But He did do it. God the Son took on human nature. Without ceasing to be God He became Man.
The human nature of Jesus Christ was created, and from that point on He, God the Son, was both God and Man, one Person, two natures.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He had no human father because He was Son of God.
He was conceived miraculously to show that His coming was pure gift from God. Nothing we could do would merit His coming, or in any way cause it. It was pure gift.
He was born of a sinless mother, because it was fitting that sin have no place in His coming.
He was joining a sinful humanity but cannot Himself be tainted by sin.
The moment that God became man was the dawning of salvation. A lot of things still needed to happen, but the main point had been established. There was no going back on this blessing.
Once God had given Himself to humanity in this way, there would be no revoking of His blessing.
He would not abandon us at some future point. He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things? (Romans 8,32)
Why did He come in such obscurity? For one thing to make the point that only eyes of faith will see the Salvation which is being offered.
God made Himself visible in the Incarnation. Anyone could see God as He walked about! But only those with eyes of faith, with the right disposition, could see the inner meaning of what God’s coming signified.
In this sense the whole Church has been reflecting on the Birth of Christ, the Incarnation, for two millennia.
We are still coming to terms with it, and we do that through the eyes of faith.
Faith teaches us what God is like, what He does, what He wants. With faith we learn to recognise a certain ‘style’ in the way that God goes about His work.
He usually seems to call lowly types rather than the high and mighty. Look at the people involved with His birth. Our Lady, St Joseph, St John the Baptist – humble in holiness; the shepherds – humble in social standing.
He lifts up the lowly and casts down the proud, as Mary tells us in the Magnificat.
As to the proud, they are still trying to disprove Him in every possible way – to kill Him, to make Him irrelevant, to impede His message and mission. These can still be saved, if they will humble themselves and repent.
The more obscure the Saviour’s coming the more one has to search out its meaning, and that is what He wants us to do. That searching is good for us, for when we search for Him, we are enabling Him to enlighten us.
We are greatly blessed to share in the divinity of Him who consented to share in our humanity.
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