The Christmas holiday is a swirl of tinsel, market capitalism, cookie sheets, and, if Andy Williams is to be believed, “scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” Yet, many of the attractions of the holiday can so often become distractions. It can be as though we attempt to throw a blanket over the truth, hiding, as we might, the eucatastrophe of Christ’s incarnation—that God became flesh and dwelt among us in a little town in Judea, in material space and real time, when “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1). But no distraction is able to veil the cosmic significance of Christmas. The God who stands beyond the inky blackness of a seemingly indifferent universe has come down. The Stranger has made his dwelling with man.
The Virgin birth upends all of our expectations of the manner of God’s coming into the world. As Nana Dolce remarks in “The Glorious Condescension of the Incarnation,” the one whom we confess in the Nicene Creed—the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God—this God is found in a manger. Though he is but days old, he is, at the same time, more ancient than the mother in whose arms he rests.
The Glorious Condescension of the Incarnation
For a holiday that’s marked by the gathering of family, Christmas so often tends to be an occasion where the fault lines in our families and communities are felt most acutely. Christmas can be a time of profound loneliness. Yet, the Bible presents our greatest estrangement as that between us and the God of heaven in terms that are as uncompromising as they are honest. He is our Creator and we are his creatures. He is holy and we are not. Though, as Eric Landry observes in “Meeting a Stranger,” the glorious message of the gospel is that God overcomes the estrangement. In Christ, the Lord of Creation stooped down, becoming like us in every way that we might not be abandoned, but welcomed as his loved and cherished children.
Meeting a Stranger
The manner in which Christ came into the world sets before us an example of humility; the pattern of Christian life and ministry is cruciform, following the footsteps of our Savior. Yet, as J. Todd Billings observes in his article “Incarnational Ministry and the Unique Incarnate Christ,” Christians should be wary of using terms like “incarnational ministry” and “missional” too loosely. Because Jesus is the God-man and we are not, the shape of Christian ministry—particularly as it pertains to culture-crossing endeavors—is a response to the realities of Christ’s once-for-all incarnational ministry. We are thereby freed from those things that are otherwise superfluous to a humble and non-manipulative witness for the sake of the gospel.
Incarnational Ministry and the Unique Incarnate Christ
For all the benefits and distractions of our technological moment, and despite the variety of ways we are prone to become self obsessed particularly around the holidays, we cannot help but feel at a loss for who we really are or how we can find meaningful satisfaction. As Michael Horton observes in “What Are You Looking For?,” so many of the voices around us (Christmas commercials or otherwise) call us to look inward, to believe in ourselves, and do the hard work of seeking and finding what we’re really looking for. But this only lays a burden which we cannot release. The good news of Christ’s coming into the world is that our greatest need is met by Christ not according to the force of our efforts, but as a passive gift, received by faith.
What Are you Looking For?
