Why did Jesus come to earth? Theologians tend to answer that question from a human perspective: He came to show us what God is like, to show us what a human being should be like, to lay down His life as a sacrifice. I cannot help thinking, though, that Incarnation had meaning in other, cosmic ways.
God loves matter. You can read His signature everywhere: rocks that crack open to reveal delicate crystals, the clouds swirling around Venus, the fecundity of the oceans.
Clearly, according to Genesis, the act of creation gave God pleasure.
Yet, creation also introduced a gulf between God and His subjects, a gulf that can be sensed all through the Old Testament. Moses, David, Jeremiah and other bold wrestlers with the Almighty flung this accusation to the heavens: “Lord, you don’t know what it’s like down here!”
Job was most blunt: “Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?”
They had a point, a point God Himself acknowledged with the decision to visit planet Earth. Choosing words that astonish, the author of Hebrews reflects on Jesus’ life as a time when he ‘learned obedience,‘ ‘was made perfect,’ and became a ‘sympathetic‘ high priest. There is only one way to learn sympathy, as signified by the Greek roots of the word, syn pathos, ‘to feel or suffer with.’
Of the many reasons for Incarnation, surely one was to answer Job’s accusation. Do you have eyes of flesh? Yes, indeed.
I, a citizen of the visible world, know well the struggle involved in clinging to belief in another, invisible world. Christmas turns the tables and hints at the struggle involved when the Lord of both worlds descends to live by the rules of this one. In Bethlehem, the two worlds came together, realigned; what Jesus went on to accomplish on planet Earth made it possible for God someday to resolve all disharmonies in both worlds. No wonder a choir of angels broke out in spontaneous song, disturbing not only a few shepherds but the entire universe.
– Philip Yancey
Here’s a cover of Future of Forestry’s song, ‘THE EARTH STOOD STILL’. We pray it blesses you. Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas
A shoutout to the Royston Pais of Roy Studios, keyboardist & producer, for being such an incredible blessing
