CHURCH TEACHING

Starting from the Biblical perspective, the Church reflects further on the significance of the
incarnation. Pay attention to the new insights contained in this article:
The Incarnation is a unique and singular event. Its truth informs the way we view God and ourselves
(God became man, 2018).

Divine Condescension

When Jesus arrived on earth, he changed the way humanity viewed God. In Jesus, God came down
from heaven to earth without compromising his divinity. The Incarnation of Christ crowned centuries
of divine revelation, God’s slow revealing of himself, making himself known to humanity over time.
God’s divine communication was now to be known through the Person of his Son. The Catechism of
the Catholic Church defines the Incarnation as “the fact that the Son of God assumed a human
nature to accomplish our salvation in it” (CCC, 461).

This is the most profound meaning behind our Christmas celebrations. [T]he Incarnation of the Son of
God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result
of a confused mixture of the divine and humans. He became truly man while remaining truly God.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man. (CCC, 464)

This holy condescension of God means that we can never accuse God of being absent or lofty or
unreachable or inaccessible. The Incarnation—the taking on of flesh in the Virgin’s womb—is the
moment whereby the inexhaustible, inexpressible, invisible, omnipotent, and almighty Holy One takes
on human visage. The divinity of God shines through a human person now.
At the time appointed by God, the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, the Word, and
substantial Image of the Father, became incarnate; without losing his divine nature, he assumed
human nature. (CCC, 479)

Divine Dignity

Jesus, coming as a human person, changed the way we view ourselves. The Second Vatican Council
declared that the Incarnation raises our human dignity. He who is “the image of the invisible God”
(Colossians 1:15) is himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam, he restores the divine likeness
disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human
nature, as he assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact, it has been raised to a divine dignity in
our respect too. (Gaudium et Spes, 22)

Humanity now counts the face of God among its own. Never again may I look at another person, or
myself, with disdain or disrespect, for there is an inherent dignity in all. For by his incarnation, the Son
of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands; he thought
with a human mind, acted by human choice, and loved a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, he
has indeed been made one of us, like us in all things except sin. (Gaudium et Spes, 22)

This is why we celebrate Christmas; the Nativity is the realization of the Incarnation. This is why we
kneel with wonder, praying at the manger. The Christ Child gives us insight into the God who truly
knows us, loves us, and still chooses to save us. As we yield ever more deeply to the love of God, we
discover that Christmas’ true meaning brings us a keener understanding of our true selves.

The Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus, “we see our God made visible and
so are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see.” (Roman Missal, Preface of Christmas I). The
individual characteristics of Christ’s body express the divine person of God’s Son. He has made the
features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a
divine image, for the believer who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one
depicted. (CCC, 477)

The doctrine of the incarnation, the Church provides us with these two important themes:
1. The incarnation is God reaching out to the whole of creation.
2. The incarnation is God immersing Himself in the very concrete situation of
people.

As you ponder on what these two themes mean, focus on “reaching out,” “whole of creation,” “God
immersing Himself,” and “concrete situation of people.”
In the understanding of the Church inspired by the Biblical literature, God is Creator, and He loves
what He created. It is no wonder that the Bible starts with God creating in the book of Genesis and
that after each day of creation, he surveys what he made with satisfaction and exclaims, “It’s good!”
The Church also teaches that creation is an overflow of God’s love. We and the rest of creation, in
Biblical understanding, are fashioned out of boundless love. Because God loved so much, he
created.
In Jesus, the Incarnate Word, God continues to reach out in love for creation and renews creation.
Through Jesus, God has shown us the way of life, a way of relating with ourselves and others, and
indeed with the whole of creation, which can lead to the renewal of our world. Jesus showed us that
human beings can sacrifice for one another, that we can show genuine compassion, that we dare
to work for justice and peace against opposition.

The incarnation is also God’s solidarity with people, especially with the poor and the oppressed. In
Jesus’ life and ministry, we see God’s concern for the sick and the marginalized. Around one-third of
Jesus’ recorded activities in the Gospels are concerned with healing and giving hope to the sick and
those afflicted in any way. In Jesus, the saving God has visited his people. The Old Testament refers to
this as God “pitching his tent among his people” (Exodus 40: 34-38) so that people will live entire lives
(John 10:10).

Pitching tents with others is a symbol of an intimate relationship, solidarity, or oneness. Biblical scholars
usually use this expression concerning the incarnation. In the following anecdote from Steven Bouma-
Prediger, we understand how pitching tent with others becomes one way of speaking about the
doctrine of the incarnation (Read this concerning John 1:1-18):

"It was raining, cold and hard, as we finally canoed into our camp for the night. It may have been
spring back home, with blooming tulips, but May in the Adirondacks is often still late winter. My
students and I needed some shelter from the weather, so we pitched our four-person tents, and after
a hot meal of delicious food and some conversation about the day, we dove into our warm, dry
shelters. You get to know someone well, sleeping in a small tent night after night. You know who
snores and who rolls about, who likes to sleep in, and who is up with the birds. With tenting comes a
newfound level of intimacy."

In this famous passage, verse 14 in Greek says that “the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” As Eugene
Peterson puts it: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” God tented with the Israelites
in the wilderness, and in Christ, God pitches his tent with us. God is with us, up close, in person. How amazing that God
pitches his tent among the likes of us! Praise God from whom all blessings flow.