Longing for Incarnation: A Reflection for Advent
Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash
As Advent nears, our minds may drift towards memories of warm, crackling fires in stone hearths, the scent of gingerbread and pine wafting through the air, and the jingle of sleigh bells as we recall the sweet taste of Grandma’s fresh frosted sugar cookies. Our memories are formed and empowered by the experience of our senses. Watching a family gathering on a computer screen just doesn’t compare to the in-the-flesh event. A video of a newborn cannot compete with the ability to hold that baby, smell that newborn skin, and stroke those soft tufts of hair. There’s something different, something powerful, something potential in the real presence of others. Being present with one another means that at one moment we can chat across the room and in the next moment experience the full embrace of our loved one. Our senses tingle with the possibilities. On a computer screen? Not so much.
These past eight months of quarantine, Zoom meetings, and social distancing have made us aware of our longing for—and need of—real community. Whether it’s the joy of high-fiving our best friends when our favorite sports team wins, singing in harmony as we sit in close-packed church pews, or holding the hand of a dying loved one, we long for the energy and emotional satisfaction that only real presence can provide.
This intense longing for embodied presence points us toward a deeper understanding of the incarnation. On a visceral level we have come to understand that embodiment matters. This has always been part of Christian theology. From the creation story in Genesis where God speaks the physical realm into existence and declares that his creation is good, to the burning bush appearance of the Lord to Moses, to the cloud-by-day and fire-by-night presence of God in the wilderness, to the provision of manna and quail and water before a hungry and thirsty (and complaining) people, to the thunder-and-lightning theophanies on Mount Sinai, to the withholding of rain and the bringing of rain at the command of the prophet, the Old Testament continually points to a God who refuses to abandon creation. This God is known because of his involvement in creation. Yahweh refuses to be defined by transcendence alone, even though it is true that this God is far above and beyond what humans can comprehend (Job 42:3). But Yahweh refuses to remain unknown and uninvolved.
Instead, God gets down in the dirt with humanity. God takes on the flesh of man who was made from dust. Augustine described the contrast so eloquently:
“Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.”
(Sermon 191)
Some 1300 years after Augustine, Charles Wesley also grappled with this truth as he penned the lyrics to “Glory Be to God on High”:
“See the eternal Son of God
A mortal Son of Man,
Now dwelling in an earthly clod
Whom Heaven cannot contain!
Stand amazed, ye heavens, look at this!
See the Lord of earth and skies
Low humbled to the dust He is,
And in a manger lies!”
The beauty of the paradox of the incarnation is almost incomprehensible. But God’s own design of the human body speaks to the goodness of physicality. God gave us the senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing so that we might experience the physical world. The longing that we feel to be present with our loved ones in a time of COVID is not merely a spiritual or emotional desire; rather, it speaks to the fullness of physical experience that God designed for humanity.
In a broken world, it might be easy to dismiss physicality. Sin has wreaked such havoc upon the created realm that we might mistake the realities of illness, hunger, thirst, and physical pain for a commentary on the value of this world. The Gnostics made this error, arguing that the physical realm was imperfect and only the spiritual realm mattered. As a result, any idea of God becoming flesh in the incarnation or remaining in the flesh at the resurrection appeared as foolishness. These errors continue today and have perpetuated the myth that a purely spiritual, disembodied existence with God in the afterlife is the epitome of happiness.
The empty tomb argues otherwise. God did not abandon the broken world, freeing Jesus from a prison of flesh. Rather, God redeemed and restored the flesh so that the risen Christ would be the first fruits of this redemption. The promise for the future is that we, too, will gain immortal bodies at the resurrection of the dead. And we will not escape this world, but the new Jerusalem will descend from heaven so that God will dwell with his people in a restored creation (Rev. 21:1-3). God has no plans of leaving behind his masterful creation, no matter how derelict that creation may appear in the present moment.
That dereliction, of course, is no fault of God. Athanasius, the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, described humanity’s fault in taking our focus away from God: “Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense” (On the Incarnation). But God’s glorious answer to this problem, Athanasius continued, was the incarnation: “The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their sense, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body.” Athanasius considered a variety of ways in which Christ might have offered his sacrifice, such as appearing and dying immediately. But such an idea runs counter to the purposes of God:
…for if He had surrendered His body to death and then raised it again at once He would have ceased to be an object of our senses. Instead of that, He stayed in His body and let Himself be seen in it, doing acts and giving signs which showed Him to be not only man, but also God the Word. There were thus two things which the Savior did for us by becoming Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation.
Jesus regularly and fearlessly used the physical to demonstrate the spiritual. When Jesus healed the leper in Matt. 8:1-4, for example, Jesus easily could have pronounced healing from a safe distance. (In our time of pandemic, we have more sympathy both for the need to distance ourselves from the afflicted as well as the need for the separated to experience reintegration into the community.) But Jesus reached out and physically touched the leper so that he might bring a fuller restoration. Rather than uncleanness spreading to Jesus, his holiness spread to the afflicted man and welcomed him back into the community. This restoration of the broken provides a foretaste of the restoration Christ will bring to all creation at the end of days. Engagement, not separation. Healing, not abandonment.
The cross itself bears witness to the full commitment of God to bring restoration. Only the perfect Son of God could pay the high price of sin, but only a human could redeem other humans. And so the God-man willingly suffered the physical brutality of the worst of human sin so that humans could be redeemed. Pope Leo I in the fifth century remarked,
For He who is true GOD is also true man: and in this union there is no lie, since the humility of manhood and the loftiness of the Godhead both meet there. For as GOD is not changed by the showing of pity, so man is not swallowed up by the dignity. (Tome).
Only this indivisible union of the two natures could accomplish salvation for humanity. The real presence of God in this world is a commitment formed from a deep and abiding love. It was not necessary to God to become sensate; it was purely to meet our needs that God did so. Once again, Athanasius offered a beautiful description of this rationale:
For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us (On the Incarnation).
Christ took on flesh despite the cost, the danger, and the pain. In assuming human flesh, Jesus says, “I love you enough to experience this with you.” God with us. This is the message of the nativity (Matt. 1:23).
The Gospels not only speak to Jesus’s divinity (Jn. 1:1-3), but they emphasize Jesus’s full human experience: he hungered (Lk. 4:2), thirsted (Jn. 19:28), became tired (Jn. 4:6), wept (Jn. 11:35), grew angry (Mk.3:5), was filled with compassion (Matt. 15:32), and died. Even his resurrection body—immortal to be sure—kept the scars that bear testimony to his full humanity. When Thomas doubted, the resurrected Jesus showed Thomas his wounds (Jn. 20:27). Embodiment matters.
God did not stop engaging our senses after the resurrection, either. Because God created us to experience the world in physical ways, God continues to communicate to us in physical ways. In the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, God uses outward physical elements to communicate inward grace to all who believe. John Wesley describes the interaction in this way:
Is not the eating of that bread, and the drinking of that cup, the outward, visible means, whereby God conveys into our souls all that spiritual grace, that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which were purchased by the body of Christ once broken and the blood of Christ once shed for us? Let all, therefore, who truly desire the grace of God, eat of that bread, and drink of that cup (Sermon, “The Means of Grace”).
Wesley further describes the Lord’s Supper as “my waiting in the way God has ordained, and expecting that he will meet me there, because he has promised so to do.” Our physical experience matters to God, and so God meets us in the physical experience. Regular Communion reminds us of God’s continual giving of grace in this physical world. God has not abandoned us.
In this most unusual season of Advent, where separation from loved ones and fears of illness, death, and economic difficulties rule the day, it can be tempting to agree with the Gnostics that fleeing this broken world would be the easiest fix. But Advent season not only remembers the first in-the-flesh arrival of Jesus, it also points ahead to the physical return of Christ. Let our longing for the presence of one another during this season remind us of a greater longing—for a God who has not abandoned this physical realm and who promises to return one day and wipe away every tear from our eyes: God with us.
Dr. Suzanne Nicholson is Professor of New Testament at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. She is a Deacon in the United Methodist Church and serves as Assistant Lead Editor of Firebrand.