Jurgen Moltmann says when we celebrate Christmas, at its heart we are celebrating something almost unimaginable, “the Creator of heaven and earth, whom even the heaven of heavens cannot contain, becomes so humble and small that in this child Jesus, he is beside us and lives among us”.
Matthew’s gospel says, “Look, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel which means, ‘God with us’”. Yet what manner of child is this, in whom is expressed all the majesty and glory of God himself ? I don’t just stumble at the thought of that, I literally stagger at the possibility.
Don’t worry about putting God into a box. When you consider the Creator and Sustainer of the universe freely packaged into a tiny, helpless frame of a baby – then God literally bursts out of the box of convention & cliché. And the unimaginable happens. Suddenly the God ‘whom even the heaven of heavens’ cannot contain is up close and personal.
Like Christmas wrapping after the presents are opened – there is nothing neat and tidy about it. I have my struggles with the logic of Incarnation as it is. Process it just for a moment – holy God and finite hormone driven, male humanity – packaged together in the God-man Jesus. The divine and human natures are united. At best this is holy irony – at worst it’s madness.
It leaves me feeling off balance & uneasy – almost overwhelmed at times with unknowing – like as though all I thought I knew has been erased back to ground zero. And what does that sound like ?
In Old Testament language we would call this being humbled in the presence of God. And you know what ? I don’t think rationalism or logical argument quite cuts it in these places.
In moments and events touched by the finger of God, a more appropriate response is wonder, awe and radical amazement. Abraham Herschel says, “…wonder is the pre-requisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.” You see, when we use reason, we are trying to explain & adapt the world to our concepts. However, when we experience wonder – we make a significant shift. We begin seeking to adapt our minds to the world as it is. Herschel says, “Under the running sea of all our theories & scientific explanations, lies the original abyss of radical amazement”.
