Incarnation Reflections: Good News in Surprising Places
“Glory to God in the Highest” (Luke 2:14) – a vital part of the Apostle Luke’s retelling of the mysterious encounter between a heavenly host of angels and a group of Judean shepherds “watching their flocks by night.” Before getting too far, I have to insert a meandering insight about Luke's oft-recounted Christmas story: Luke never actually says that the angels were flying. Yes, he tells us that the shepherds were in the field at night when they were surprised by an angel (potentially glowing?) among them who was eventually joined by a large number of angels. Sure, they could have been in the sky; they could have just as likely been standing among and around the shepherds, which is no less terrifying if you think about it. Personally, I think this brings even more awe into the narrative. It’s ok not knowing the fullness of what really happened that night.
Hearing the angels proclaim the heights of God’s greatness and glory is an important part of that story, but I’ve always been inspired by a line in GK Chesterton’s poem “Gloria in Profundis” where he turns the angels’ proclamation upside down: “Glory to God in the lowest…” I’ve read enough of Chesterton to know that he’s not aiming toward blasphemy here. Rather, he’s grabbing our attention by playing on the words we know so well. We read “lowest” rather than “highest” and recognize that something’s off. Yes, in a way, that’s true. God is on high and always will be. But, Chesterton is also right in the direction he’s pointing his readers.
At the Incarnation, God came low. Unimaginably low. The sort of lowness described by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2: “Though [Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (vv. 6-8) This is the kind of lowliness Chesterton wants us to recognize at Christmastime. God came low. Immanuel, God with us. But, he didn’t just become a man, he came to the lowliest of men and women. Mary – a nobody from nowhere. Proclaiming her own “humble estate” (Luke 1:48) is far more than a spiritual virtue; it’s a physical reality. Mary was a young girl from a nameless family in a backwoods town of a forgotten region in a despised part of the Roman empire. She’s a part of the story. Glory to God in the lowest.
Biblical scholars say that Luke often made special point to draw our attention toward outsiders - the disenfranchised, the forgotten, the despised. In part, that’s why he pays far more attention to Mary and Elizabeth than the other gospel writers. He also wants to make sure that we recognize the shepherds’ role in the Christmas story. As Tim Keller tells us in his The Reason for God, including shepherds in the story makes little strategic sense, unless it was absolutely true that they were there. Shepherds were on the very bottom of the social pyramid - even below the station of Mary and Joseph. It makes no sense to involve them in the story, unless Luke wants to make sure that we all understand that the coming of Christ is good news for all people. In fact, it’s good for all of creation. In Luke’s account alone, we have highly religious people (Zechariah), the poor (shepherds), nobility (Herod and a reference to King David), pagans (wise men from the east), animals (sheep and a donkey), bustling cities (Jerusalem) and small towns (Nazareth and Bethlehem), angels, even heavenly bodies (the star). Men and women. Rich and poor. A stable. An Innkeeper. Nearly every aspect of God’s creation is represented in the Christmas story, and this is What God entered into, because He cares for and loves it.
One of the Church’s earliest heresies argued that Jesus could not be both God and man. In ways, it rightly questioned how an infinitely good God could stoop so low. So, some said Jesus was God, but only appeared as a man; others said Jesus was just a man, but had an unusually high amount of God’s spirit resting on Him. Similarly, many Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy for His claims to be God. They understood how high God is above us. Yahweh couldn’t walk around, get hungry, and have dirty feet and bad breath. He couldn’t be poor!
Growing up in the Church and hearing about Jesus’ birth so many times, I’ve often been numb to the Incarnation. I think this is one of the reasons many Christmas carols focus on mystery and awe, because the very notion of God becoming man is mind-blowingly fantastic, and we need our spark reignited. Yes, the incarnation IS astounding. The Word became Flesh (Jn. 1:4). Infinite and unbound God, yet occupying a finite location for 33 years. Complete omniscience, yet a human mind. Absolute omnipotence, yet a newborn baby who could not walk, talk, or take care of Himself. But, neither His humanity nor divinity was ever compromised. Sit with that for a while. It’s supposed to make us uneasy.
Life is magnificent, but we tend to be easily dulled by it. The beauty which surrounds us is too much to contemplate, yet somehow we go through the routines of life without pausing to reflect on life’s miracles.
Children don’t have this problem; they don’t get bored by the fantastic; they have no trouble being amazed by what’s amazing. When they find an activity especially enjoyable (like being swung around), they say “do it again!” And, it’s never the child who pleads for it to stop. A child may become fascinated by a door opening and closing and will do it over and over again until mom loses her patience. I’m not mystified by opening and closing doors because I know something about the mechanisms and inertia at play; I understand what causes the sound. Because I’ve seen doors open and close so many times, it’s no longer a wonderful thing to me.
This leads to my first point: Do everything you can to keep awe, mystery, and the imagination front-and-center in the lives of our children. We won’t get tired of seeing Jesus in the new Earth regardless of how many times we see Him. Therefore, repetition and familiarity are not the problem. Our willful separation from God is. This is one of the first lessons of the Incarnation. It’s amazing, and we need to keep it so. Listen to Christmas carols; they’re full of mystery. Let your children embrace the magic. Don’t run from it; run toward it, and celebrate every instant where your children are enthralled with mystery because the Incarnation is loaded with it.
In his essay “Myth Became Fact,” C.S. Lewis says the best stories connect the abstract to the concrete. This is why mythic cultures told stories to explain their worlds. Yet when cultures stop telling wonderful stories, they lose their imagination, joy, and confidence.
This is Doris Walker’s struggle in “Miracle on 34th Street.” Having been deeply hurt herself, she attempts to shield her daughter by eliminating all imagination, believing cold rationality will give her a better life. As a result, little Susan Walker doesn’t believe in fairies, elves, or Santa Claus. She also doesn’t know how to play, appreciate the intricacies of life, or have tangible and confident hope. Christmas enters in and restores that.
Herein lies one of the fundamental tasks of Christian education: a growing understanding should always enhance wonder and never reduce it. Recognizing that God has orchestrated every aspect of our lives, we should never lose our sense of awe, especially considering how God could have acted in a variety of different ways. Grass isn’t just green because it is. God could have made grass’ physical properties cause it to be purple. Yet, He chose green. So, it’s not just grass. It’s the imprint and purposeful desire of our loving God. Because God is there and has not been silent, every single second is turbo-charged with reason to be thankful.
Secondly, by taking on flesh, Jesus restored value and hope to the physical. He didn’t come to merely save souls. He came to fix everything, and the Incarnation reminds us of that. The Apostle Paul tells us the entire creation longs to be restored, and we can have confidence Jesus intends to fix everything, including the “redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). Even, most of Jesus’ miracles brought physical restoration to physical needs.
Most every ancient culture told stories of a god coming to save the people he loves. Surprising, Jesus didn’t just come to save us; He became one of us. And, His story doesn’t take place in a fantasy world or mythical time. We know when it was: “This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2). We know where it was: “Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem” (Luke 2:4). We can still go there and walk the streets.
Jesus walked those streets, too. He also got hungry. He taught about trees, rocks, birds, money, and food … all things which matter to us. Because Jesus took on flesh, lived a physical life, and physically rose again, we can have confidence in the tangible aspects of our own lives. We don’t need to spiritualize everything for it to somehow become better or more Christian. We can delight in our friendships, in food, and in the beauty of the world God created.
The story of Jesus’ birth also restores value to the earthy and forgotten aspects of life. Angels proclaimed His coming to shepherds who were among the lowest class in Israel. Jesus’ parents were poor. Mary was of a forgotten clan. And, of course, Jesus was born in a stable where (while we’ve romanticized it) no mom would want to lay her newborn son. My favorite poet once spoke of the Christmas story ironically as “Glory to God in the lowest.” Yet, this was God’s purposeful plan, so we would learn to appreciate what the world rejects.
Similarly, the incarnation means we don’t have to baptize or sanctify our lessons we teach to our kids. We don’t have to attach verses to everything we discuss, and we don’t have to find spiritual analogies for our learning to become more acceptable. The Incarnation restores value to the physical aspect of life, so we can delight in kickball, limelight hydrangeas, soulful music, three-digit subtraction, and a really good cup of coffee. For these, too, are from God.
