Incarnation is a big word. It’s a Latinization theologians love that generally goes over the head of people in the pew. Explaining it at Christmas time is an annual temptation for the preacher. God becomes flesh. Spirit takes on matter. This matters, of course.
But how does it matter and why?
Sometimes we preach the incarnation as if it is an alien landing into our world. Something like Superman arriving from the Planet Krypton and having to be disguised as Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter, who now and then changes into his superhero costume to save the world. But God has never been alien to the world. In fact, God is more at home in creation than we are. God is the very ground of all being.
So, what happens in the conception of Jesus in Mary and his birth in Bethlehem is not a biological exception to nature’s rules but the spiritual manifestation of reality itself that has been hidden since the foundation of the world but is at last being revealed. God is with us. That is it. Emmanuel. News to us. Good news we could have known but didn’t, because we haven’t been awake long enough to realize we are not alone in this material world, that the world is not alone a material world. Thus, the needed annunciation of angels.
The Incarnation is a mystery to be embraced, not a problem to be solved. The best way to proclaim it is through poetry more than prose, calling out wonder rather than lining out doctrine. A good story. A pregnant metaphor. An image to ponder. These invite us to wonder as we wander beyond reason, as beauty leads to truth.
~ George A. Mason
22 December 2023
Love the Paul Tillich shout out.