759 words, 4 minute read.
It is Christmas. The feast of the greater-than-אω–infinite, (self–)transcendent God’s second syncatabasis. The God who previously lowered himself to speak the universe – a finite immanence – into being, now goes even further. He becomes a mere human. An infinitesimal spec within the infinitesimal spec that is his creation. He empties himself into his son, who then spends his earthly life showing us how to reciprocate that self-emptying gift, to the point of accepting even abandonment and death on the cross. So great is God’s love for me that he is willing to lose his very self for the sake of spelling out the totality and unconditionality of his love, for the sake of being at my side even when I am alone in pain.
No one, nowhere, at no time is from then on ever alone. No matter what is happening to them or what they are doing. The self-sacrificing, self-emptying, self-giving transcendent is with them, is in them – and they are in him. He is at our side, ready to welcome us into the infinite, ever-increasing, ever-self-transcending cycle of Trinitarian love.
But, what does this mean for me? What tangible consequences does God’s incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born of his mother Mary, have for me, who desires to follow him?
I believe the consequences to be twofold.
First, the incarnation is an invitation to perfection. An invitation to total self-emptying self-giving. Following Jesus means to give myself to others, to make the good of others my priority, which – paradoxically – also implies striving to make myself the best that I can be, so that my self-giving may be a true gift for its recipients. In other words, it is an invitation to the perfection of the incarnate God. An invitation not to making my finite, limited, feeble self perfect, but to participation in God’s perfection. He does the heavy lifting; all he asks of me is to say yes to his call to follow him. He meets me where I am, he comes to me in my own backwater of a Bethlehem and stretches out his hand towards me. He has already overcome the greatest chasm: the infinite making himself also finite, the transcendent becoming also immanent. No flaws of mine, versus his perfection, can compare to what he has already lowered himself to.
Second, the incarnation is an invitation to imperfection. An invitation to not shirk from it, to not let it get in the way of following him who broke bread with tax collectors and prostitutes. Why? Because each one of us is him. Suffering for our distance from him, rejoicing in our closeness to him, called to being one with him. Jesus looks at the tax collector, the prostitute, and sees himself. He looks at us and envelops us in his love. He first accepts us as we are, no matter who and how we are. And only then does he invite us to perfection. He loves us regardless of whether we accept it or not. He loves us even if we are the ones crucifying him.
He calls me to love him in every person I meet and not to get hung up about their choices, regardless of how I judge them. No matter how good I think they may be, or how wrong their choices may be in my eyes, or how incomprehensible they may be to me, he calls me not to judge them, but to love them.
Who am I to not love the racist, the conspiracy theorist, the woman who has had an abortion, the Catholic who, out of a distorted sense of tradition, is fixated on rules, the hater, the envier, the ill-wisher, the embezzler, the egoist, the ideologist, the dogmatist, the relativist, the flat-earther, the trickle-down capitalist, the science fiction fan, the avid gardener, the transgender person, the gay couple, or my own, sinful self? How presumptuous of me to think that these are more different from me than infinity is from the finite, than transcendence is from the immanent! How un-Christian of me to think that any of these could constitute legitimate grounds for distance, for the withdrawal of Christ-imitating, self-giving love!
Jesus left us clear instructions: that we all may be one, like the father is in him and he is in the father, so that we all may be in them. All called to perfection by participation in divine love, convinced by the incarnation that no distance, no differences, no imperfections can get in the way.
Merry Christmas!
eyebeleave 