The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 Full Text John 1:1-18

There’s a lot of terrible happenings in the news this week. So let’s talk about the Incarnation. Maybe that seems like an awkward juxtaposition, like the magic of Christmas, the lights and the music and the family togetherness doesn’t belong beside all this tragedy, war, and death. That would be an interesting juxtaposition, but it’s not really what I’m thinking of this week. It’s more that all this violence and tragedy highlights the necessity of the incarnation while also underscoring just how large a thing it is.

How do I even write about this without resorting to clichéd platitudes?

Look, the creator of the universe became meat and stepped into the pain and mess of this broken created world. Just that much would have been astonishing, but even more than that he came not as a conquering ruler, but as an ordinary baby, child of a tradesperson, born in scandal.

He came to live in the midst of all our violence, all our brokenness, all our tragedies and trauma. He lived with us, as us, through the big geopolitical machinations of dictators and empires, but also through the smaller human-scaled failures and griefs.

It seems important.