The Challenge of the Incarnation : Today, I am invited to sit with the Trinity and imagine how they gaze down upon the world and see it in all its glory and filth:  first to see, second to hear, and third to observe the contrast between human actions and the actions of God. And, miracle of miracles, the Trinity determines that Jesus will enter into the organic life of the world.

So Jesus comes among us. Let the mind stretches and creaks as it tries to absorb this picture: a baby in the cow-feed. The Almighty crying for milk. How could the glorious one accept such iThe ndignity? How could the safe choose vulnerability? How could the strong embrace feebleness with such grace? How can God be so utterly unselfish? Absorbing the Incarnation means facing our own skewed ideas of godliness. It shows us where we equate dignity with pride, or glory with rank, or worth with recognition.

The humility of God holds the mirror up to us. If Christ gives up his honour, his dignity, his omniscient view, and immerses himself in the mess of this world, what are the implications for me? Because surely if Christ is incarnated in the world, are we not called to imitate him by being incarnated too? And what does that mean? It seems to me to be first an act of giving up – Christ leaving the heavenly kingdom to become man; second, an act of giving to – Jesus giving himself as a gift to the world; and third, an act of giving for – working the redemption of humans from eternal death. The Meditation on the Incarnation focuses us not just on what is done, but on why and how it is done.

We may be at risk in what we do, even those in mission settings, maintaining our privilege(s), according ourselves a different status from those around us, being in the developing world but not of it. But Jesus did not do this. The Incarnation shows us ourselves in God’s eyes: we are the poor, the corrupt, the hapless he chose to live with. He lived among us. He did not retain his heavenly jeep or his heavenly rank. ‘A carpenter? From Nazareth, We should not forget that the ‘little sacrifices’ we make, how paltry they are in the context of the Incarnation, just think how protected we are by God’s generosity, His abundant grace without measure.

If we concentrate only on ‘giving to’, we justify all our activities and interventions by our beneficence. However, as we meditate on the Incarnation, and our vision becomes infused in the imagination with God’s eyes looking at the world, it becomes increasingly clear to us that we are not the benefactors here; God is! Often we may donate for a good cause: but what do we donate? Most of the time branded but unwanted gifts, The kind of ‘giving to’ that harms the fragile dignity of the receiver, has nothing in common with the way in which God gives to us in the Incarnation. Let us not fool ourselves with cheap generosity.

If our chief concern is ‘giving for’ the poor, oppressed or otherwise needy groups we may work with, we can become intolerant of causes other than our own.  Incarnational ‘giving for’ is reflective; it examines itself and keeps the focus wholly on the heart of the matter in question.) 

The Incarnation calls all of us, whatever our situation, to leave aside our selfishness and dignity to engage with what is damaged around us. For what can be ‘beneath us’, if Jesus becomes a baby? What indignity could be meted out to us that could compare with the gulf he crosses? God uses the Incarnation, his own giving up, to beautify and dignify our world. How am I being called to give up something of my privilege to be more fully incarnated in my own current setting? How is God inviting me to give myself more to the people or the situation in which he has placed me? And can I consider more deeply for whom or for what I am giving gifts? This time of Advent and Christmas gives us the opportunity to ponder on how we can incarnate his love more humbly, and with deeper generosity, so that it lights our personal world with a glory or a glow or merely a glimpse that points people to the incarnate God who is the GIFT

 Advent is a period of Grace, a call to grow deeper, come to new life and appreciate the God-Gift given to us ! And this Christmas could be a new start for us.