The Incarnation at celebrate at Christmas is an overflowing of the love of God into a real tangible, concrete way. God knows we are not merely intellectual creatures, but need touch, need facts, need reality.
God could have done things differently but the fact that He descended, “became flesh and dwelt with us,” tells us something about His nature, and also ours. The Good News came in embodied form, so that we could encounter it in a personal way.
Scripture also tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Humanity was made to long for things – want and desire are core to our nature. They are on one hand healthy and good, but on the other hand when left too long will make the heart sick. Hope, when combined with fulfillment, bring healing. The birth of Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment, both as the “consolation of Israel” and as the answer to the “groaning of creation”.
The nature of God is relational – the Godhead exists in trinity, an eternal relationship that we replicate in our own relationships. The coming of Jesus was followed by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Person by which we enter into relationship with God, and by which we are bound into the Body of Christ, the Incarnation of Jesus now into His church.
Today’s passage is called the “Visitation,” the meeting of Mary and her cousin Elizabeth immediately after the Annunciation when Mary learns of her blessing and challenge. In this passage we get a picture of the physicality of the Incarnation. Jesus could have come like the Terminator, showing up as a fully formed adult but instead He began His humanity as all humans do, as a handful of cells replicating within His mother.
But even in that form, Jesus’ presence has power to bring joy, as the baby in Elizabeth’s womb reacts with rejoicing. This connection – between Mary, Elizabeth, the unborn John and the three unborn Christ is the first stirring of the church. The rejoicing comes in relationship and in community – and in diversity. The two women are in completely different stages of life, but are brought together by the work of God and ultimately the coming of Christ.
This relational aspect extends to our lives today, as we are told that Jesus is also in a way incarnate in the “least of these” around us. When we serve others we ultimately serve Jesus.
This Christmas, let us live out the rejoicing at the fulfillment that the coming of Christ brings – and let us also seek to bring that fulfillment to those around us.
— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, December 22, 2024