God With Us: Both Like Us and Unlike Us
How the Festival of Incarnation both Comforts us and Confronts us
Welcome to the festival of the incarnation. Christmas is the story of how God the Father fleshed out the good news for all by sending his Son to become a human. A nativity without the Christ child at its center is just a set of plastic dolls. A likewise life is missing something just as surely. How might we put Christ at the center of our Christmas in a compelling way this year?
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NIV).
No historic event has ever been more astonishing than when God wore diapers. How pregnant with hope the great cloud of witnesses must have been as they realized a young woman had become pregnant with God?
CHRISTMAS COMFORTS US WITH A CHRIST LIKE US
I would claim that even from a non-believing, non-Christian perspective, the incarnation changed, in an anthropological sense, the way human beings might relate to their “gods.” A Christian would instead say it changed our relationship with the Trinity.
John 1 says it with more brevity:
"God became flesh."
God speaks as more than creator. He converses with us as one of our own. God had spoken to humanity before, but after the incarnation, God speaks from humanity to humanity. Hebrews 4:15 doubles down on this idea:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
It is a comforting and relatable because he chose to relate to us through the incarnation, to comfort us with his very presence.
CHRISTMAS CONFRONTS US WITH A CHRIST UNLIKE MANY OF US
But the way the incarnation went down does more than comfort us. It confronts us. By becoming a baby God became like us in a way. But this baby is also unlike many of us, and that is a confrontational thought. Notably:
Jesus is Middle-Eastern
Jesus is a Jew
Jesus has darker skin
Jesus is a man
I should point out here that the incarnation has a beginning but no end. Meaning: these are all listed in the present tense. Jesus still is, currently, now a middle eastern Jewish man with darker skin than mine. Worship post-manger for many of us means a worship of someone who we would see not only as different than us, but perhaps might treat as beneath us, or even threatening to us, today.
The incarnation may help us deal with those different than us in a different way. Jesus did not fear going to those unlike himself, in fact, he made himself like those unlike himself in the most metaphysical sense. God blended in with the crowd, so he might flesh out the gospel. But the fact that Jesus remains unlike us in many ways helps us relate to those who are unlike us now.
Jesus in a manger makes you look at all children differently.
Jesus in Bethlehem makes you look at all small towns differently.
Jesus escaping Herod makes you look at all tyrants differently.
Jesus in Egypt makes you look at all refugees and immigrants differently.
Jesus in Nazareth makes you look at all despised regions differently.
“Wise men still seek him" and take note that minimum-wage marginalized workers like the shepherds sought him out first. They weren’t the last to work on Christmas. This is a season to wonder if we are treating those who serve us in our economy the way Christ would:
The incarnation makes you think differently about that single mom working two jobs for small wages as a cashier, who has to put her kids out of school into extra day care days while she works over the holidays.
…think differently about that gas station attendant wearing a turban with an odd accent you can’t place.
…differently about the undocumented laborer who picked the sweet potatoes for your Christmas dish.
…about that doctor you have an appointment with who wears a head covering.
…about the immigrant maid who cleaned your hotel room.
The incarnation first makes you think differently about those different from you.
CHRISTMAS COMPELS US TOWARD A RADICALLY INCARNATED LOVE
And then it makes you live differently—with a radically incarnated love. There are many ways to celebrate the Christmas season but there is one main way to celebrate the incarnation: love others as He loved them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian who stood up to the Nazi’s, talked about Christmas this way:
“The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.”
If my pride balks at doing menial tasks and what seems beneath me I don't worship the God who emptied himself to serve and save humanity.
To incarnate is just to flesh out something. You could loosely paraphrase John 1:14 like this: “The eternal good news that God brings was fleshed out when Jesus came as a baby. When we bring grace and truth to people in our everyday lives we can put skin on the gospel bones as well.”
So, how about you? How might you put skin on the gospel in your life, in your neighborhood, in your family, in your school, in your church, in your work? In what ways are you living out a radically incarnated love in your life?