Jesus who is holy and was wholly human

God with meat. 

God in flesh. 

I imagine my grandma would balk at the seeming irreverence, but if the usual response of the room is anything to go by, it’s a helpful jolt into re-engaging with the reality of the Incarnation. The opulence of God’s divine nature meets the ordinariness of last night’s dinner and the contents of your pantry. 

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In a world of teams and tribes, pickets and protests, mudslinging and fearmongering, we are reminded that the unthinkable has indeed already happened. The greatest chasm has already been bridged. The uncrossable lines have already been traversed. The furthest poles have already met. In Christ, God really has become flesh. 

It is worth remembering that this truth, solace to us believers, is but insolence to many non-believers. Surely if you do believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present God, a God who dwells outside of time and taxes, the indignity of potty training is beyond comprehension? 

How can one make sense of the fount of knowledge being taught by mere mortals? The author of time being told He really did have to go to bed? The crafter of hearts experiencing the agony of His being broken? 

Why would a God ensconced in the safety and security of the heavens above stoop so low as to need the loo? Why would He wear skin, susceptible as it is to scratches and scrapes? The one whose glory never fades experience the joy, shock – and sometimes horror – of age? 

We humans have always sought to better our lot on this terrestrial ball. We have innovated for centuries and millennia to avoid and cure diseases, to enjoy the best of the summer and to shield ourselves from the worst of winter. We adapt to whatever terrain is native to our square of the map. We create telegrams and telephones, defying oceans and forests to maintain connection with loved ones who move beyond our physical reach. So much of our enterprise in this world involves seeking to transcend our limitations and to live larger than our nature. We are constantly reaching upwards to a world that is just beyond our grasp, and yet here, in the plot-twist-of-plot-twists, God makes Himself known by entering in by walking among us. By taking on the restrictions we spend so much energy trying to shrug off. 

I, like some of you, am a creature of habit. I’m happy enough to experience change in small doses, but bigger shifts take me a while to recover from. New colleagues are first assessed from a distance. Moving home involves months of adjustment. Remixes of familiar songs are invariably not my favourites. In this context, grateful as I am for a Saviour who understands me, one who has worn my weaknesses and understands the grind of being a human being, I am struck that while Jesus has gone to such incredible lengths to ​“get” me, I may never fully understand what it meant for Him to not cling on to the manifestation of what was rightfully His, the equality with God which for eons and eons He had seamlessly dwelt in, to become one of us. 

It truly boggles the mind that as He navigated this exposure, this vulnerability to the harsh realities of the here and now, He didn’t lose hold of the very nature of God. Instead, He revealed it. 

The highs and lows of this life are not merely the dull precursor to the wonders of the next. God is here, in the randomness of tragedy and the ritual of cleaning teeth. To be an earth dweller is not simply to inhabit an idea that God once had, but to experience something of who Jesus is. 

Jesus is greater than us in ways that we cannot imagine, and yet He is one of us in ways we may never fully comprehend. This Christmas, how will knowing that Jesus wears skin change the way you wear yours?