Incarnation is not a word we necessarily use often in everyday conversations. Honestly, very few of us even take the time to truly unpack this word and its implications. Incarnation simply means “becoming flesh”. To be “incarnate” is to be in the flesh. When we speak of THE Incarnation (of Christ) we are simply referring to his birth and his entrance into our physical planet as a human being. My aim in this post is not to unpack the deeper theological doctrines of the Incarnation but rather to examine the Incarnation as an unique expression of God’s Love and a view into his character.
Colossians 1:15 tells us quite plainly that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God”. This is reinforced by John 1:18 with the following declaration: “No one has ever seen God…He (Jesus) has made him known.” Not only is it amazing to consider Jesus as the visible image of the invisible God; embodying all of the holy and gracious characteristics of the Father, revealing the radiance of his glory (Hebrews 1:3), but it is astounding to witness the love that God displayed through the Incarnation.
When I think of Love, I usually end up thinking of profound admiration or attraction to something. I “love” music, which simply means that I like it very much. To say that someone has “fallen in love” is to say that they have been overtaken by feelings of attraction and admiration for another person. But in the case of the Incarnation we see a very different kind of love displayed. This love, is selfless and is not based on any admiration or attraction but rather on the choice of the one loving. There is no admirable aura about humanity that compels God to enter our atmosphere in the form of humanity. God takes the initiative and does so out of his own character.
Furthermore, God does not demand that we meet him on his level. He condescends to our place and looks like us. In so doing, he opens the door to transform us to look more like him. This flips our human prejudices upside down. Racism, sexism and all other forms of discrimination and bigotry are flatly confronted by the love of our God who made himself like us. Our idolatry is displayed in our attraction to people who are most like us and our distrust of people who are different from us. Love though, as displayed by God in the Incarnation, seeks to embrace those who are different in an act of selflessness. It is mind-boggling to consider that the transcendent creator God would take the form of his own creation to bring them back to him.
The great mystery of God becoming flesh should never be taken for granted. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, an expression of an inexpressible beauty. Maybe we should find a way to let “incarnation” sneak back into our everyday vocabulary. It’s a dynamic word with wondrous implications.