Incarnation and the Modern Mind

I can understand the modern mind being uncomfortable with the Incarnation of Christ. In the classroom, college campus, pop writing, and television programming there is a mistrust or disdain for anything that can not be explained by reason. Anything that we can’t explain scientifically automatically is arrogantly relegated to being the primitive superstitions of scared people with overly active imaginations. This profound skepticism of our age mistrusts anything “true” that is handed down from our ancestors and has been around for a couple of thousand years. What I can’t understand is how Christians can be unmoved by the belief in such a thing!

It is one thing to be conditioned by the age into a cynicism against things that involve mysteries of cosmic proportions; it is another thing to be within the Christian framework of understanding and be seemingly indifferent. Perhaps it is the Church’s move more toward the culture’s understanding of things that has “toned down” our exuberance. Think about it, we are celebrating a “virgin birth”. We are celebrating God becoming human. Further more, this God who took our flesh and “visited” us did so in the most unimaginable manner—in an animal stall which smelled of excrement and was attended by the “nobodies” of the world. How could we view that with intellectual and emotional indifference?

Is it because it is too familiar? Or is it because we tend to trust more in therapy than in profound mystery? Are we so conditioned by cynicism and getting in touch with our feelings that we can no longer gaze at a truth of profound beauty and be utterly shaken and changed by something outside ourselves? Have words like awe, wonder, and amazement been bred out of us by the bland speech of our era, which tends to think only in terms of what will work and what is efficient and comfortable?

I ask these questions of myself, fearing that I might ever get comfortable and unmoved by the weightiness of the event we celebrate at Christmas. After all, we are all creatures of our time and can not help but pick up the thought modes and language of our day. That is okay as far as it goes. To live in the culture we must understand the culture. But, in our understanding of it, we must learn where it is both advancing us as human beings and where it is “thinning us out” as human beings.

Are we advanced as people if we try to “moderate” the belief and language of the Incarnation? A look at our culture would suggest that we are not ennobled by moderating our belief in mysterious and unexplainable things. It is precisely the belief in the profound mysteries of a personal God coming and taking our flesh that has made people larger than life. One look at the apostles will tell you that. In rereading the Gospels in the past couple of months, I was profoundly struck by Jesus’ friends, in this case the Apostles. Jesus disciples were a rather ordinary lot. Yet as they held to the scandal of the Incarnation, cross, and resurrection, they became people of integrity, courage and greatness. They became people of purpose who would ultimately leave comfort and security, and acclaim to enter a life of risk, uncertainty and adventure. So shaken were they by what they saw in Jesus that they would all die for him. When is the last time you saw people in the modern era that believed in anything that they would die for?

If the Incarnation is true, it is not of marginal importance, it is everything. We see this in the response of the Virgin Mary when the angel tells her that she will be the servant of the Lord to bear the Son of God. We see in her response both a healthy questioning of what God asks and an unconditional acquiescence in God’s call on her life, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me as you have said.” Rather than try to figure out how this would fit into her life, she finds her purpose in being a creature who is willing to let God run her life. She can’t explain what is happening, it will cost her shame and reproach, yet as she takes her place as a creature and allows God to have his claims on her life, she is sustained through the whole ordeal of misunderstanding, hiding, and mockery with great joy. Oh, how she sings in the Magnificat! “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”

If our response to the coming of God is any less than Mary’s, we obviously don’t get it. If we are not thrilled, awed, and amazed, we have not thought about it deeply enough. Here is how you know if you get it or not. If, this Christmas, all you can think about is how Jesus will make your life more comfortable and secure, you are not gazing outwardly but inwardly—you are looking at yourself. That is a recipe for disaster. You will leave this Christmas season emptier than you started. But if you see that the meaning in the Incarnation is bigger and better than your comfort and security, you will move out into a large place and will leave Christmas, along with all its hustle and bustle filled beyond your wildest imagination. The reason is simple; you were not built to serve yourself. You can not glut your senses with trinkets, toys, and parties and find happiness. You were built for Him. To the degree you are filled with Him this Christmas is the degree that you will be filled this season. Go only after the “Christmas feeling” and it will all taste like sawdust in January. Go after and gaze at… “the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and all the eggnog, the feast, the beauty, the gift giving, and the music of the season will fill you. It will be the living response of gratitude.