A Holy Mystery (What Manner of Man Is Jesus, Part 1) | Letters to a Samuel Generation
by Rachel Starr Thomson
written September 2005
Sweet little Jesus boy
Need you be born in a manger?
Sweet little holy child
We didn't know who you were...
Before the beginning, there was God. A great Being characterized by love, joy, holiness, and creative power. From His beautiful mind the world was created, and in it were placed the man and his wife, created to walk with God.
Things changed. Man exercised his power of choice and drove a wedge between the Creator and the created, for the One was holy, and the other a walking death. For thousands of years God spoke into the world from a distance. He inspired the writings we now call “the Bible.” He covered Himself in fire and darkness and descended on Mt. Sinai. He sent angels. He gave visions.
And then He came.
The Hebrew prophet Isaiah spoke of the Coming: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa.7:14). Immanuel. It means “God with us.”
God came. He wrapped bright spirit in human flesh and filled human veins with Life, and the one we call the Son of God was born into the world. They named Him Jesus, for it was said that He would save His people from their sins. A 5th century hymn imagines the scene from a heavenly perspective:
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
As often as we talk about the Incarnation—every year at Christmas, each time we quote John 3:16—I think we forget. Our world trivializes everything, and unfortunately the Church has followed suit in many ways. We can turn on Christian radio and listen to Scooby-Doo singing “Hallelujah;” we can turn on secular television Christmas morning and watch a lonely cartoon Jesus sing “Happy Birthday to Me” on South Park. Wonder goes by the wayside as the profane swallows the sacred, and we forget.
Will you allow me to remind you?
The Son lived long before we had a name for Him. He lived in the Time Before Time. Creation, in particular humanity, is filled with evidence of Him. If man was made in the image of the Father, then every child is made in the image of the Son. What we call “family” existed first in the love of the Father and the Son for each other. Marriage too is a reflection of His love for humanity, for He declared Himself to be the Eternal Bridegroom seeking a bride.
He is the source of life, this precious thing we all have inside of us. Scientists searching for the origins of life will never find it in a primordial soup, for it comes straight from the Being whose existence they deny. The Apostle John tells us that “All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4).
He is the One we long for. Have you ever wondered why so many of the people who followed Jesus were in such a sinful mess when He came? The prostitutes and tax collectors Jesus is famous for reaching weren't even trying to live good lives until they caught sight of His holiness. They were driven by hunger. Every choice they made was a grasping for something to fill their emptiness, and when He came to them, at last they found the only one who could satisfy. Jesus declared Himself to be the Bread of God, the Water of Life, the Way we must follow, the Treasure we greatly desire. Human beings are full of hunger, and though we so often chase sinful things in an effort to fill it, ultimately we are hungry because we need Jesus Christ. He is at the bottom of every longing. He made us for Himself.
All of this was formed in human flesh, made to find sustenance in a young girl's womb. Jesus was a man, yes. He was fully Man, and He means for us to relate to Him as a man. But was immeasurably more, and we cannot allow ourselves to forget that. The Shining Man who Peter saw on the Mount of Transfiguration wasn't a “new” Jesus—He was the Jesus who had always been, the Ancient of Days in human flesh.
This should make a difference to the way we live our lives. It should affect the way we pray, because we're not asking things in the name of the Nice Joe down the street; we're asking in the Name of Jesus. It should affect the way we look at the world around us, because Creation still bears testimony to His eternal existence. Most of all, it should affect the way we view our relationship with God. You see, through Jesus, God has defined our relationship with Him in many human terms. He calls us “child,” “brother, sister, mother,” “servant,” “friend.” As I muse with these things, I am overcome with the knowledge that the Ever-Existent One, the Eternal Son of the Father, has reached out to me. We are called to a relationship with God.
At His feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim, with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces in His presence
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Lord Most High!
- The song quotes are from “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” by Robert MacGimsey and “The Liturgy of St. James.”
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