The Mystery of Christ: A New Year’s Blessing

The meaning of Christmas is often obscured by the frenzy of this season. The wonder of Christmas is that 2000 years ago, in Bethlehem, God entered the human experience. This is called the Incarnation. All of our celebrating and gift giving points back to the gift of God to humanity in Jesus.

The Incarnation represents a great mystery. How can God be involved in the world and care for the creation without negating human action? Bishop NT Wright says that many people see only two possible answers to this question. Either God leaves the world to its own devices, or, on the other hand, God reaches into the world from time to time to intervene in the natural course of things. However, as NT Wright says, a better approach would be to reject this either/or model in favor a more biblically informed notion of the Incarnation.

Jesus was just as much fully human as fully divine. Jesus was a fragile baby, whose life was as delicate and precarious as every other baby, and yet in this baby God dwelled directly. God’s care for the created world went beyond reaching in from the outside every now and then, and it went beyond hoping that the world would sort itself out without God’s help. Instead, God acted from within the world in a way that will set the world right in the end. Thus, NT Wright says: “The God who comes to the middle of world history in Jesus does not come to wave a magic wand and automatically cure everything in sight. God comes to take its pain and shame, its guilt and rebellion, on to himself, to bear the weight of the world’s evil so that the world may be healed.”

This is a presence that is both more subtle and more powerful than the either/or understanding of God’s activity will allow. For here, we are part of a grand narrative, one in which God directs and has the lead role. What we do and say as humans makes a world of difference because of the importance of the narrative itself. In this narrative our lives are very much reflections of the life of the One who forever became a part of the world in the simplicity of a child. As 2006 calendars are being thrown away, and their 2007 replacements are being tacked onto the wall, pray that 2007 will be a year of obedience to God’s will and awe at the mystery of Christ.

I pray that you will have a blessed New Year – filled with the presence and guidance of our Lord.