The Incarnation as the Source of Meaning

So much of what passes for modern Christianity has forgotten that all theology is essentially Christology. One place where this is especially clear is the abandonment of a robust theology of the Incarnation. When was the last time you heard a sermon on the Incarnation? For the early Church, as evidenced by the writings of the Fathers, the Incarnation was an issue of central importance – one which frequently divided the orthodox from the heretics.

This Advent, I am meditating on the Incarnation and what it means for all of theology. Being a political theorist by training, this meditation necessarily leads into thinking about human nature and community. The Incarnation stands utterly opposed to Gnosticism – of both the theological and political variety. As such, it is the foundation of a truly Christian philosophy. I plan to continue developing these ideas over the Advent season.

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In his book, Miracles, C.S. Lewis describes the Incarnation as an invasion,

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation.… Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.… every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and “occupation.”

This is also how Our Lord presents himself. When asked to read the Scripture at the synagogue in Nazareth, he reads from the prophet Isaiah,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Then he closes the scroll, sits down, and says,               

This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

When St. John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Our Lord if he was the Messiah, Our Lord replied, 

Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. 

I have often heard Christians warn against forgetting about Easter during Christmas time, because the Cross is the true meaning of Christmas. I disagree; the Incarnation gives meaning to the Cross, Christmas gives meaning to Easter. For this reason, C.S. Lewis calls the Incarnation, “the Grand Miracle”:

the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. (emphasis added)

The Incarnation shows us that Our Lord’s conception, birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and awaited return do not merely provide us with a covering for our sin and a ticket to heaven. The Incarnation is Our Lord’s invasion of the territory surrendered by Adam to Sin, Death, and the Devil. By taking on flesh and man’s nature, Our Lord redeems it and all that was put under the dominion of man. This is why Our Lord’s life is as important to his mission as his death and resurrection. In the words he spoke, he declared his kingdom. In the miracles he performed, he showed his kingship.

In his poem “Chrouses from ‘The Rock’” T.S. Eliot attempts to describe the central importance of the incarnation. He begins by describing the man’s struggles in the world of sin, their search for God, their turning to idols or to despair, echoing again and again, “Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness upon the face of the deep.” Then he describes the Incarnation.

Then came, at a predetermined moment, a moment in time and of time,/A moment not out of time, but in time, in what we call history: transecting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time,/A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning.

Our Lord can heal the brokenhearted, preach deliverance to the captive, and proclaim good news to the poor, because in his suffering, he redeemed suffering. We do not have to despair, we do not have to “stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards.”

The faith and the love are in the waiting. Our Lord has proclaimed his kingdom; the victory is ours. As we await his return and final victory, we are called to proclaim the good news of the Incarnation. While this means first a proclamation of the forgiveness of sins and union with Christ, this also means the proclamation of the redemption of human life. There is, therefore, a Christian – that is Incarnational – way of living every aspect of life. Incarnational Christians do not deny the goodness of material existence, the reality of pain or disease or suffering, of human love and sexuality and family. Through the Incarnation, Christians see human life validated and perfected. The Incarnation is simultaneously an affirmation and an inspiration.

But the Incarnation also forbids Christians to become escapists. Just as God did not abandon his creation but entered it in order to redeem it, so Christians should not expect a ticket out of God’s work of redeeming the world. We will not be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, as Isaac Watts reminds us. If we would reign with Our Lord, we must fight with him. This fighting is primarily done through the proclamation of the good news on all fronts. We must proclaim the good news against sin, against economic exploitation, against racism, against fear, and against despair. We must build for the kingdom.

 The Church is the kingdom of God on earth through union with Christ, a kingdom not of this world. She is the door through which one is welcomed into the kingdom of God. Because Christianity is Incarnational, Christians must distance themselves from anyone who would seek to proclaim Christ without the Church. There is no unembodied path to God.

The Incarnation is the fount of meaning for a world crushed by Evil. Through it suffering and loss are redeemed. Through it man and nature are affirmed. The Incarnation of Our Lord provides the pattern and inspiration for the work of the Church in furthering his invasion of the kingdom of Sin, Death, and the Devil. The Incarnation provides the hope for the King’s return and the final victory.