Incarnation

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Today’s Reflection

IN THE SEASON OF ADVENT we are asked to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, for this manifestation of God in human form. What Christmas proclaims to us is that God was willing to close the gap between divinity and humanity by entering into the human experience, becoming one of us, knowing hunger and thirst, friendship and betrayal, hope and loss, and the agony of death. It’s a lot to take in, the implications of God incarnate. And because we can’t take it in all at once, by participating in the seasons of the church year we have the opportunity to take up the idea again and again as the season rolls around to Advent.
We imagine the birth of Jesus, the smells and sounds of the stable, the brightness of the star, the vulnerability of the baby, and the wonder of the shepherds. The temptation is to stop there and move on, to turn the Nativity into a sentimental tableau that has little meaning for the rest of our lives.
But if we study this idea of incarnation – of Jesus being fully human and fully divine – we must consider that this event comes about because God is trying to tell us something, show us something about God’s nature and our nature, about divinity and humanity and the intersection of those two realms.

– Melissa Tidwell
Embodied Light