Pathways Press.com

Written by Brian Morykon, a contemporary writer and director of Communications for Renovare, an organization that focuses on spiritual formation.

Sometimes I wonder what the Incarnation changed.  I mean, I know—my head knows—it changed everything. It divided time. It brought the Kingdom close. It ripped open the portal to union with God. But, … knowing that somewhere someone is grieving a baby beheaded by a terrorist, I feel a temptation to despair.  Then this thought stabilizes my soul: God never pretended that the arrival of Jesus was a quick fix for humanity’s woes.  From day one, Jesus was swaddled in suffering.  Think of the stable. The long trip to Egypt. Herod’s Bethlehem massacre. Later, naked on a cross, suffering was his only covering. But the suffering that surrounded Jesus throughout his life and the suffering he experienced firsthand did not suffocate him. Humanity’s hurt moved him; it did not overwhelm him. Sin broke his heart; it did not break his joy. The birth and life of Jesus did change everything—I’m believing it again with fresh feeling as I write—but perhaps not in the way or on the timetable we had hoped.  In the Incarnation, God is saying … Life on earth matters. People matter. Pain matters. When I made all I made in the way I made it, I knew what I was doing. I understood the cost of free will, which I know may seem hard to believe. So I’ll take on your frame. I’ll experience all you feel and more. I’ll show you how to live at peace in a troubled world, how to be an unhurried and healing presence. I’ll come in the flesh to be an example to you. Then I’ll come in the Spirit to be life in you. My rescue will be fast. Your adoption will be quick as a hammer’s swing. My rescue will be slow. Millenia will pass before the fullness of the Kingdom comes. My slowness is not cruelty or lack of care. On the contrary: I’m birthing a people of everlasting joy. That takes time.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  [John 1:14]