The incarnation

Christianity rests on three principle tenets: (1) Because God loves, he came to earth as a human, (2) He [Jesus] gave his life as the price of offering people forgiveness, (3) He came back to life, and will gather his followers to eternal paradise. Myriad doctrines and theological positions exist within the Christian faith, many of which are arguable, but to rightly identify as a Christian, these points are non-negotiable. [These also provide a useful contrast to Islam, which specifically denies all three, but that is another topic].

The event in which God came to earth as a human is called the incarnation (not to be confused with reincarnation, the idea that dead people’s spirits return for additional lives as other people or animals). For many centuries prior to Jesus’ birth, the Jewish people had looked forward to the messiah/savior/liberator promised in their sacred scriptures (the Bible’s  “Old Testament”). Although their scriptures said the messiah would save people from their sins, the Jews living at the time of Christ hoped he would free them from Roman rule and re-establish their theocracy. This was not his purpose, and he explicitly said so [John 18:36].

The story of the incarnation -– of God coming to earth/becoming one of us/being a human – is told in various ways. At Christmas, churches around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus through songs, sermons, and reenactments complete with angels, shepherds, and three wise men from the East (we’ll ignore for now the fact that December 25 was almost certainly not Jesus’ birthday, and the ‘three wise men’ were an unknown number of astrologers who visited many months later). Congregants sing “Away in the Manger’ as they envision his birth. We picture him as a baby in a little crib filled with straw, and with all the usual appeal of babies ... cute, cuddly, innocent, and already exceptional (“no crying he makes ....).

At Christmas, we are encouraged to recognize the great sacrifice God made in coming to earth not as a king or a mighty leader, but in the humble form of a human baby. True, the Son of God chose to trade the glory, majesty, and power of heaven to live as a human (incarnate), an exercise in love and humility that should leave us in absolute awe. But he did not become human the day he was born of Mary. The incarnation actually took place nine months earlier when, as an angel had predicted, the virgin Mary became pregnant [Matthew 1:18-21, Luke 1:30-31]. God initially came not as a baby but as the fertilized egg in Mary's womb. He shared our humanity to the extent that he began at the very beginning of human life, just like we did.

The incarnation is a miracle of even greater proportion than that of a baby born to a virgin. It was God’s way of showing his total commitment to becoming like us, to face all we face and more, to lower himself to our most humble and helpless level. This adds another dimension to our appreciation of how far God was willing to go to connect with our humanity. And, although we hardly expect “Away in the Manger” to be replaced by “He came as a Fetus”, the stark facts of his incarnation have implications regarding how his followers should view abortion.