THE MYSTERY OF INCARNATION

25 DECEMBER: CHRISTMAS: Jn 1:1-5,9-14

Crib at Limbwata, Chililabombwe, Zambia

The mystery of Jesus Christ

Chapter 1 of the Gospel of John expresses well the mystery of Incarnation, which is the mystery of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God who chose to share with us our humanity to enable us to share his divinity. This is the mystery that we celebrate at Christmas.

Our deepest desire is to become gods

Since the beginning, starting with Adam and Eve, human beings always strived to become gods. And so deep a desire is much more than an impossible dream; it is part of what we are, carrying in us the image of God. However, in the pursuit of this goal, we have gone astray, by trying to be gods outside God and against God. That is the great sin, called original sin, because it is the source of all other sins. Being created, how can we ever reach perfection on our own? Being given life, how can we become the owners of life? In spite of that, each one of us, being Adam and Eve, behaves in the same way, claiming the right to life and to lordship over all. By doing that, we abandon the right path, moving further and further away from the fulfilment of our deepest desire, transforming it more and more into an impossible dream. How can we become gods by rejecting the image of the living God in us?

The Word became flesh

The Son of God - the Word or the Speaking out of God - "became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (Jn 1:14). By doing that, he restores humanity to itself, becoming again a true image of God. Being one with Jesus Christ, we become gods; not any more false gods set up on the emptiness of our own selves, but true gods, being one  with God in Jesus Christ.

"To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn 1:12-13).

By sheer grace

On this great mystery, St Augustine wrote: 

"For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become son of God?

Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace."