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Editor’s note: We are thrilled to invite you to celebrate the hope of Advent with us and join The Marvel and Miracle of Advent by Christine Caine and Lisa Harper starting December 2nd! Grab a friend and sign up today!
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Christmas is more miraculous than we think, y’all and one of the reasons I’ve grown to thoroughly enjoy the Advent season (the word “Advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “arrival” or “coming” and it is traditionally observed during the 40-day period prior to Christmas) is that it gives me time to really mull that over. Speaking of tradition, let’s review our historical trajectory as Christ-followers for a moment to put Jesus’ Incarnation – which Australian theologian John Nolland calls “the divine condescension,” isn’t that awesome? – in proper context so we can stoke our wonder regarding how the Savior of the World chose to be born in a Bethlehem barn.
Very early in Christian history Emperor Constantine gathered a bunch of spiritual leaders together to establish the theological boundaries of our faith because some prevalent heresies in the first and second century were threatening to derail our whole belief system! The first foundational wall of orthodoxy they settled at the Nicene Council in AD 325 was that of Jesus’ divinity. Of course, we humans tend to veer from one opinionated ditch to another especially when it comes to religion and politics so just a little over a hundred years later in AD 451 Christian bishops were once again convened at the Council of Chalcedon to condemn the “over correction” from Nicea, which was the false assumption that if Jesus was fully divine, He couldn’t be fully human, too. One leader who held this unorthodox view went so far as to insist that when Jesus cried at the tomb of Lazarus, they were faux tears…the tears of an actor! 1
Ultimately, The Council of Chalcedon affirmed that Jesus Christ has two natures and is paradoxically both truly divine and truly human at the same time (the Greek word and theological term for this truism is hypostasis, from which we get the term hypostatic union that describes the supernaturally symbiotic relationship between God the Father and God the Son).
Granted that’s a mouthful and a mind-full – I think it’s even more difficult than playing Twister at my age to wrap our human cognition around the fact that Jesus is perfectly divine and perfectly human at the same time! Fortunately, one of my theological heroes, Dr. J.I. Packer, put that profound reality in more comprehensive terminology:
It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is the truth of the Incarnation. 2
I wholeheartedly agree… the more I think about the King of all kings humbly condescending to wear an ancient pair of Pampers, the more gob-smacked by grace I get! As an adult rabbi, all Jesus did was speak and the wind and waves obeyed Him (Mark 4:35-41). All He did was touch a leper and the disfiguring disease immediately left the poor man (Matthew 8:1-4). All He did was walk up to a commotion taking place on a spooky tombstone-strewn hill called the Gerasenes, where a legion of demons was tormenting a man, and His mere presence caused that evil gang of satan’s minions to have a conniption fit because they recognized His supernatural supremacy (Mark 5:1-13). Yet, before King Jesus chose to express His divine power and majesty, He deigned to be potty-trained, to learn Aramaic (the New Testament sayings of Jesus are typically recorded in Greek but His native tongue was Aramaic – more specifically a Galilean version of western Aramaic – although Luke 4:16-20 reveals that He also read and spoke Hebrew 3), to do His chores, and eventually to saunter down a dirt road to school like all the other little boys in Nazareth.
He was fully God and fully human at the same time.
And the miraculous reality of the hypostatic union is why the author of Hebrews could describe Jesus as our empathetic High Priest:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have One who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. — Hebrews 4:14-16
If you and I could understand, even in part, that passage means our Savior can say, “Been there, done that!” with regards to every single emotion in the human continuum – including our deepest grief and most difficult struggles – it would dramatically increase our security as His stumbling saints. Jesus is not some faraway, dispassionate, untouchable, cape-wearing superhero who redeems us from a distance, y’all! Instead,
- He’s an up-close, incarnate, compassionate Redeemer who intimately relates to every, single, thing we’ve been through or are afraid of going through.
Marinate for a moment in the juxtapositional miracle of Jesus’ divine humanity and I bet you’ll find yourself leaning more fully into His embrace. Because since He’s capable of knowing us completely, His love is surely unconditional.
Christmas is truly more miraculous than we tend to think so let’s take some time before December 25th to marinate in all that it means for us!
- Dr. Don Payne, “Biblical and Theological Reflection on the Practice of Ministry” (class lecture notes, Denver Seminary, Denver, CO, July 2019).
- J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press; Downer’s Grove, IL; 1973), page 53.
- Robert H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 4, 5.
Written for Devotionals Daily by Lisa Harper co-author with Christine Caine of The Marvel and Miracle of Advent.
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Your Turn
Our King, Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time! It’s that awe-inspiring?! Let’s worship our wholly divine God who deigned to join us in flesh and blood out of His great and unimaginable love for us! And, please join us for The Marvel and Miracle of Advent OBS! ~ Devotionals Daily