Today we remember the astonishing fact that God became a helpless and tiny human being attached to the wall of a teen-age girl’s uterus. The almighty infinite God became human flesh smaller than our fingernail: no one ever imagined it or prayed for it.
God’s incarnation was so astounding that to the present day we do not know what to think of it. Why would God do such a thing? Why would the all holy and all powerful God become human? To Muslims and Jews it seems blasphemous to suggest that the Supreme Being became a tiny human in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Why would the Creator become a creature? How can this be? The incarnation of the Son of God blows our minds.
The only response we can make to the mystery of the incarnation is “God is love.” He does the unimaginable because he is love. He became a man because he is love. He lets himself to be crucified on a tree and die an ignominious death because he is love. He gives us himself, his body and blood in the Eucharist because he is love.
If we begin to understand that the incarnation of the Son of God is a mystery, we will be wise enough to worship, obey and serve Jesus with abandon. We will receive the incarnate Jesus in Holy Communion as often as possible, we will tell the world about him. We will never be the same. We will be shocked out of our selfishness into reality.
“The Word was made flesh; he had his tent pitched among us” (Jn 1: 14a): this is a shocking revelation. Christianity is the only major religion which believes in a personal relationship of human beings with God.
Only because in the incarnation of the Son of God, when God became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, it has been possible for us to touch, hear and see God and to have a person-to-person relationship with him. In his lifetime on earth people saw Jesus face to face, touched him and were touched by him, talked to him and heard him. Because God became human, he could and did suffer and die for love of us. He justified, redeemed and saved us as the God-man.
Because God became man, he could rise from the dead, conquer death and make it possible for us to also rise from the dead. Because God became man, he could leave to us his gift of his own body and blood in the Eucharist.
Because God became man, he has made it possible to be baptized into him and be new creations through his death and resurrection. We can then become adopted children of God and sharers even now of his divine nature.
Our personal relationship with God began with the incarnation of the Son of God and continues through the power of the Holy Spirit after Christ’s return to his Father,
Today’s Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, of his incarnation as man, celebrates the beginning of love that comes only in a personal relationship. Praise be to Jesus, who is God, man and love.
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