The Reason for the Season

Tracing the "I have come" words of Jesus in the Gospel narrative sets a hard-hitting background to the celebration as we approach the feast of the incarnation. Our selective minds naturally turn to such positive statements as "I have come to give life in all its fullness." but tends to overlook phrases like “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34)

The "ah" and the "ooh" of the children's nativity scene along with the Angel song of Peace and Goodwill, seems to come under attack in the light of such hard hitting statements. Other sayings further expand the notion of the coming Christ. For example it is interesting to note how others reacted to the Coming Christ words; "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God" (Luke 4:34) and elsewhere, Jesus talks about coming to divide families.

All in all, Christ's self declaration, seems a million miles from the idealistic Christmas card nativity scene, but never-the-less such sayings are the essence of the incarnation.

Moltmann makes a distinction between what he called a "fortuitous" and a "necessary" Incarnation. The later focuses on the Incarnation as the Son of God becoming a man so that He could save us from our sins. The former, on the other hand, speaks of the Incarnation as a fulfilment of the love of God, of His desire to be present and living amidst humanity, to "walk in the garden" with us.

In the light of this, what are we to make of Christ's coming?

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of– throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

–C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: William Collins, 1970), 172.

In poetic terms, Gerard Maley Hopkins in his poem ORATIO PATRIS CONDREN: O JESU VIVENS IN MARIA, writes:

Jesu that dost in Mary dwell,
Be in thy servants’ hearts as well,
In the spirit of thy holiness,
In the fulness of thy force and stress,
In the very ways that thy life goes
And virtues that thy pattern shows,
In the sharing of thy mysteries;
And every power in us that is
Against thy power put under feet
In the Holy Ghost the Paraclete
To the glory of the Father. Amen.

Mortal Beauty and God’s Grace. Pg. 7.

So this is what he meant by life in all its fullness!