We belong to the mystery of the Christian faith
Even as God's actions become more mysterious with every scientific discovery, we are assured of his blessings.
This month, we celebrate the Incarnation, a fancy word we use to remember a baby born in a stable, in an occupied country, in poverty. Yet this event is full of mystery.
The creeds tell us this baby was fully God and fully man in one person. Yet from what we have learned about God’s creation and the gift of life, this birth is inexplicable. Normally, a baby receives half its DNA from the father and half from the mother, and the genetic material received from the father determines the child’s sex. If the DNA includes a Y chromosome, the child will be a boy; if it has an X chromosome, the child will be a girl.
In Jesus’ case, we are left with a conundrum. As fully man, his genetic material is the same as ours, but there is no source of genetic material to supplement Mary’s. Yet if only Mary’s DNA was involved, Jesus would, of necessity, have been a girl. Where did Jesus’ Y chromosome come from?
Another mystery lies in the fact that babies are born helpless. Without parents or another caregiver, a baby will die. But how could Jesus – fully God and, as John says, responsible for all creation – be dependent? Any reliance on Mary and Joseph seems strange. Children need to learn their parents’ language and come to appreciate how the world works, and the Gospels tell us Jesus learned things he did not know. But how is that possible if he is also the Word?
Because of God’s love
Given how limited we are as adults, this mystery is no more explainable if we say that the Godhead entered Jesus in some mysterious manner at his baptism. The difference between the creator and any human, no matter how old, exceeds our understanding. We have no way to explain how our all-powerful God could also be a dependent human man.
As followers of Christ, we either deny the reality of these mysteries – Jesus was just a very wise human – or we accept that our faith rests on matters we don’t understand. If we live into the mystery of the Incarnation, then it changes the foundation of our belonging. It is not by understanding some set of beliefs that we are saved; we cannot understand miracles like the birth of the Son of God. But we accept that we belong by trust. The more we learn about our world, the more mysterious God’s actions become. Our scientific knowledge changes many things we thought we knew about our faith, but if we acknowledge that, at its heart, this faith is a mystery we accept, then these challenges should not worry us.
We are grafted by the work of the Spirit onto the true vine of God (another mystery), not by what we know but because of God’s gracious love for the creation and for us – a mystery all wrapped up in a God/child born in a stable.
