et incarnatus est

It takes a measure of presumption to write about a truly great thing. Great ideas and truths resist expression; pithy explanations provide inevitably simplistic representations of a greater reality.

I confess to presume much in speaking of the Incarnation. So great is this truth that, in the act of looking at and considering the Incarnation, one inescapably neglects part of the truth—the mind can only ponder a small part of its profundity. To speak of it presumes to comprehend the incomprehensible; to explain it is to confirm one’s ignorance. Yet this truth must be spoken of: It is the Good News. The Advent itself is the reason one can speak of the Incarnation.

Yet worse than arrogantly approaching so great a truth as this is to fail to approach it at all, to settle for the trite aphorisms and emotional stories that are but trivial expressions of lesser ideas. To fail to reflect on the Incarnation—not just during Advent but at all times—is to neglect the single most important truth man has known. To fail to mull over it, allowing it to transform your life, is to remain a lesser person. We must approach such great truths as the Incarnation humbly, hoping to glimpse a small part of the whole in an illuminating way.

The patriarch Tertullian was best known for his statement, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian was adamantly against attempting to prove propositional truths of Scripture through the logic and philosophies of Athens. In this regard, he may understand the Apostle Paul’s concerns in his letters to the Corinthians better than most. The Christian must ultimately realize, as Tertullian unwaveringly taught, that faith does not hinge on a rational consistency, but rather a fundamental absurdity: the Creator took on flesh. The single most important truth the Christian faith rests upon is entirely resistant to logic.

The Christ event is a radical reorienting of logic. To be truly great, make yourself small. As the Apostle says,

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knew should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Phillipians 2:5-11

Inasmuch as Christ is modeling the transformed mindset of living (“have this mind among yourselves”), the Christian mind is to reject the call of the world to make oneself great, but instead, make oneself nothing. The ultimate end of Christ’s earthly mission was “the glory of God the Father.” So too, the redeemed Christian in humbling himself is restored to his intended function: highlighting the glory of God the Father.

Reflect on the lowliness of Christ: Almighty God taking on flesh, taking human form in the lowliest of states, growing up thought to be a bastard child, living a life of service to others, to the point of death, even the shameful, horrific death on a cross. The propositional truth we must realize is that apart from Christ’s salvific work we are more pathetic and hopeless even in our loftiest moments than the scoffers thought Christ to be. Embrace the objective reality of the sinner’s need for a Savior. Walk in the path of the Messiah. Have faith in the most absurd of realities; it is the only one that truly matters.