"The Word was made flesh," writes John, "and dwelt among us." For us in 2002, this is a hard idea. We use words to command, to build up, to encourage - or the reverse. Words can be weak or they can be forceful. But they do not normally turn into people.
Even if we see this Word as part of the very mind and inner being of God, the idea is hard to grasp. If God is a pure spirit, how can we reconcile this with the idea of someone who needed to eat and drink, to sleep, to go to the toilet, even? The disciples had met and talked with Jesus, shared meals with him and been fishing with him. But recognizing him as their Lord and their God was a slow process, which only became complete after the Resurrection - think of Thomas! (Jn 20:28)
Though hard to grasp, the Incarnation is part of our faith. We are all made in God's likeness, from Mother Teresa to Adolf Hitler, serial killers, drug addicts, those of us who exploit, cheat or denigrate their neighbours, who stand aside and fail to help. We have all allowed this likeness to fade in some way. In Jesus, God experiences the pain of our condition, and restores us. But this is only possible if God is really one of us, with real bones, real blood, real thoughts.
Jesus was God incarnate - not God dressed up in human form, but both God and someone as human as us - "two persons in one substance", as the Council of Chalcedon put it in the fifth century. Another idea hard to get our minds round! (And likely to lead us into backwaters of misunderstanding, too, when we try to see Jesus, the true Son of Humanity, as Son of God and son of Mary!)
Matthew and Luke did not spend time on metaphysics. If you compare their stories, they agree on only three things - that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that Herod was king at the time (or, in Luke's case, about that time), and that Mary had conceived Jesus by "the power of the Holy Spirit" before her marriage to Joseph.
It is Jesus' conception that makes the difference. To a world that knew nothing of chromosomes, of DNA, of genetic manipulation, the message was simple and straightforward. "A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel - God with us." So Isaiah had prophesied, and the babe of Bethlehem's life was to reflect the picture Isaiah drew in so many ways.
Matthew and Luke's other, separate, stories accentuate the joy and the glory of Christ's coming. The long journey with no room at the inn, the baby cradled in the manger, the shepherds watching over their flocks, the wise men following the message of the star, all these reinforce for us the message of Christmas, of joy to the world - for Christ is born in Bethlehem. The former poet-laureate John Betjeman says it better than I can:
And is it true, and is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
HD