On the Incarnation of the Word

● It seems that this world no longer perceives the bright star in the heavens signaling the joy of Lord’s birth. Seas of glittering lights in the cities, swarms with frenzy activities like being purposely designed to stir the minds, to trouble the hearts, to irritate the retina, only not to give a moment of respite to the wondering and solitary souls to find that elusive peace and joy that Christmas supposed to bring to this restless world. Generations of devout believers in times before seem to have seen the light of Lords’ divine glory. But earthlings dwelling in the shadowy cone of a total eclipse of faith no longer can see the Light of the Son, the glory of the Father, God in the flesh, “ecce homo” who two millennia ago walked “per pedes apostolorum” through the shorelines of Galilee so that we, enlightened human beings, living today in a world of so many marvels and miracles no longer doubt but believe that He was true man and true God, sent by the Father that believing we may have life in His name.

● It is a challenging endeavor indeed to visualize and mentally apprehend and comprehend the mystery that the Word was incarnated and God became man. The apostles themselves wondered about this mystery. Since then, the human intellectual attempts to understand and to explain such mystery by employing brilliant philosophical, theological and metaphysical concepts brought us only a step closer to the border of faith, yet not in the Kingdom of God. By glimpsing beyond the borders of human knowledge and transcending horizons of understanding, those who by faith have seen the Son bear witness that they also have seen the Father.

● Through His incarnation, Christ glorifies God the Father and sanctified the human nature. He has elevated the human body from its ordinary and natural condition to a living, redeemed and extraordinary condition. Thus, through the incarnation, the salvation of man does not remain only a hope for an elusive salvation of the soul, but the salvation of the whole human person: body, soul and spirit. And that day of incarnation is also here now, is becoming a living reality, a way of life for those who are already walking in the light of the Son by the grace of the Holy Spirit. It can be already seen shining on the serene and luminous faces of the saints, in the redeeming presence and manifestation of grace in the human life. Without the incarnation there is no transfiguration, without incarnation cannot be hope for bodily resurrection.

● By the sensible materialization of the spirit of truth, the theophany of the invisible manifested in visible, in the “theoontological” and the “ontotheological”, the spirit present in the tangible and sensible reality became more palatable to the human mind and heart than the definitions, formulations, theological propositions and concepts most of the time projected and observed only through the lenses of the cognitive and abstract functions of the intellect. The Word was incarnated to make God’s presence in the world more visible, credible, and easier to be perceived by those pour and pure in spirit and acknowledged as revelation by those who have eyes of faith to see.

● The super sensible dimensions of life and of existence are usually ignored or dismissed in this age dominated by both the materialist and idealist philosophical systems of understanding reality. In spite of their rationalistic, empirical and enlightened arguments, neither materialism nor idealism, are equipped to comprehend the mystery of incarnation as revealed by God. This trans-logical, non-rational, divine mystery becomes visible by faith, the light of a new life lived by grace.

● The Christian theology is the most exalted form of anthropology because the man is seen and understood as a living icon of God, as Jesus Christ is the invisible icon of God made visible, God's glory revealed to man. By incarnation God became man, to deify humanity. Likewise, the heavens descending on earth lifted up the earth to heaven; the angels became better acquainted with humans, and man was filled with heavenly light. The incarnation has revealed that God is not only the mighty power concealed by the invisible, dwelling in the transcendental realms or a metaphysical concept of infinity, but also the sensible power and grace that touch even the fainting heart of the last mortal. By the miracle of the incarnation, those who believe are thus blessed to be born twice, in the body and spirit, with the hope and expectation to die only once.

● The Son was sent by the Father into the world to save the world and by assuming the human nature He also assumed death. If Jesus was not and is not true God, if He had not been incarnate, neither man can be delivered from the ancestral sin or can man be saved from the fatidic death. But historically, not only philosophically, mythological or mystically, the Word was incarnate. And this is the only realistic hope for man’s salvation and for his life in this world and in the world to come.

● It has been said, Jesus was born in an oriental cave, and His Body, the Church, grew into sprouts and thereafter flourished in the Roman catacombs nourished by the blood of the apostles, saints and martyrs. The Word of God is the seed from which the Church, God's kingdom on earth, is since born from within the heart of the faithful who by the grace of the Holy Spirit received the Son. The Word of God is the seed that perennial grows in the souls of believers, as Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and grew up in the womb of the righteous, full of grace, and virtuous Virgin Mary.

● While in the manger gladdened Mary was shedding tears of joy glorifying God for the birth of her son, the infant Jesus was already crying and calling His Father in heavens “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachtani”. For the Son of Man was sent into the world by the Father to help mankind to pass over the abyss of darkness, to build up with His cross a bridge over the sea of reeds, between immanent and transcendent, between creation and Creator. And because the only-begotten Son of God was fully God and fully man, He has felt all the joy but also all the pain and sorrow of man with the compassion and the intensity that only a True and Living God could experience, endure and comprehend. How important is man to God, if for his salvation God was incarnated, became man and suffered death on the cross!