God With Us: Count The Waves
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THE SUPREME MYSTERY
It is impossible to overstate the significance of the Doctrine of the Incarnation of God. The declaration that the living God who made and sustains all things became flesh and lived a human life is quite simply the mystery par excellence. It is simultaneously the most confounding truth and the most beautiful revelation of what God is really like.
The declaration that the living God who made and sustains all things became flesh and lived a human life is quite simply the mystery par excellence.
Hang with me - this may feel theological, but it is the "reason for the season," the "meaning of Christmas," and the best news we'll ever hear. That's why I love the old tradition of the Advent season. Not the hope-love-joy-peace version, but the first and second comings of Christ version.
Advent comes from an old word that means "coming" or "arrival." The Advent season was designed to kick off the Church calendar as a recalibration on the centermost reality of our faith - that God has come to be with us. A timely and needed word when we're so constantly convinced that God is waiting for us to come to him.
We celebrate the arrival of God in the body of Christ, we anticipate the return of Christ to bring about all he promised to do, and we revel in the reality that he is even here with us now by the Spirit. The creators of the Church calendar knew that for people to trust in the Gospel of Jesus, they would need, at the very least, an entire month every year solely devoted to remembering God's past, present, and future movement toward us.
I love this because it forces us to reckon with, again and again, the truth that the life and salvation we have in Christ is a one-sided affair. God did something unthinkable and unexpected to bring about reconciliation - not for flair - because nothing else would do, and we could not contribute.
The rest of the Church calendar is a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of those 3 Advents, unpacking the life God has shared with his creation through Christ. By design, this rhythm guides us again and again back into a life of faith by helping us acknowledge that our sight and certainty and self-justifications are at best incomplete.
Indeed, "the incarnation of God is the supreme mystery at the center of our Christian confession, and no less at the center of all reality" (John Clark & Marcus Johnson, The Incarnation of God). The truth on which all other truth stands and finds substance is the reality that "the Word became flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14).
The truth on which all other truth stands and finds substance is the reality that "the Word became flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14).
THE INCARNATION ISN'T JUST THE FIRST PAGE
Although the incarnation is the starting point of theology, it is not merely the starting point. It is not the doctrine you begin with to get to the next. It is not the first thing you confess to graduate in maturity. The one thing that changes everything is that God is with us and like us.
Downplaying this one piece of theology undermines the entire Gospel. For we have nothing and no one on our side if God did not come, live, die and rise in Jesus of Nazareth. We are not mostly but wholly dependent on the scandalous grace of the God who comes (Rev. 4:8).
…we have nothing and no one on our side if God did not come, live, die and rise in Jesus of Nazareth.
The scandal is that no one moved toward God, no one got God to come, no one can live a life that pays God back even a sliver for what he's done. The incarnation is the whole story, the substance of the Gospel, the news that all things have been reconciled (Col. 1:19-20).
The significance and implications are inexhaustible. In my experience, we simply don't let this truth take up the space it actually takes up.
As Athanasius' said in On The Incarnation, "Such and so many are the Savior's achievements that follow from His incarnation, that to try to number them is like gazing at the open sea and trying to count the waves." I have this very thought every time I stand by the ocean.
Words fail, and expressions fall short. There's just no "right" response to the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8). There is certainly no end to these riches and so no way for us to get over or get past them. Let me be the one to suggest we stop trying to graduate from the foundation and the flesh of our faith.
There's just no "right" response to the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8).
WELCOME THE OVERWHELM
Followers of Jesus habitually resort to "trying to count the waves." But, that is no way to enjoy the ocean, and it turns a thing of beauty into a thing of duty. Instead of reveling in the wonder of the immensity of the love of God, we invent words and organize categories of theology and gather or divide based on our agreement.
As you experience this holiday season with its annual summit on Christmas day, I encourage you to welcome the overwhelm of God's grace in the wonder of the incarnation. Leave behind the impulses to "make the most of it" or "take it seriously" in favor of the revelry of Christ. Jesus got called names and eventually murdered for promising the kingdom to tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners.
Leave behind the impulses to "make the most of it" or "take it seriously" in favor of the revelry of Christ.
The kindness of God is indeed unrelentingly overwhelming.
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