This story is too good to be true
It also happens to be true
In all of human history, there has been one miracle that makes all the others possible.
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.”
C.S. Lewis, Miracles
I see two primary reasons that God’s act of becoming man is inherently miraculous.
First: Anytime the supernatural invades the natural order is, by definition, a miracle.
Second: It provides the mechanism by which Humanity can be—will be—is even now being—redeemed.
“The renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning,” Athanasius says.
So it’s not one, but two great miracles that we see in the life of Jesus: the miracle of creation ex nihilo and the miracle of that creation’s redemption and purification.
“It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body.”
Athanasius, On the Incarnation
I once read a book on the history of philosophy that criticized Jesus for “never writing anything.” The implication, of course, was that this brand of religious leadership—always walking around and talking about how to live the good life, but never putting pen to paper to defend the claims—is somehow inferior to what we might find in Aristotle or Bentham or Russell.
The miracle of the incarnation, though, stands in sharp contrast to that claim. In the same way that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” it seems that the message of the incarnation—that the eternal Word really could take on flesh and dwell among us—might just seem too good to be true.
Jesus did not write anything. He did not leave behind a manifesto or a series of dialogues. Instead, he lived a life, one that was full to the brim with radical forgiveness, miraculous manifestations of God’s power, and incomprehensible servitude and sacrifice. He sealed it all with a public death and then, when the story looked like it was over, when all hope was lost, his body was raised to new, transformed, eternal life. He did all of this not to brag, but to be the first fruits of all creation, to give something far more powerful, far more useful than a pamphlet or a New York Times Bestseller.
What could possibly account for this? Why would God ever submit himself to such difficulty, such weakness, such vulnerability as human life?
Freud and Marx famously claimed, each in his own way, that religion is nothing more than a coping mechanism, an evolutionary leftover that keeps people from acting too antisocially or getting too caught up in anxiety and despair. Whether wish fulfillment or “the opium of the people,” sweet, simple beliefs like a virgin birth or a man dying for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind wouldn’t be necessary in the brave, liberated new world modernity promised.
Well, that world has come and gone. The promises of modernity were hollow. Our transcendence past religion never quite came to bear; in fact, the world at large has only gotten more religious in the following decades. Though the West may aptly be described as a “post-Christian” culture, more followers of Christ are being added daily even amidst persecution in Asia and Africa.1
By all standards of “reason” and “rationality,” it is too good to be true. Freud and Marx were at least on to something there. Any insufficient view of God will confirm that it’s naive to take things too far. “Don’t get carried away,” Reason warns. “Don’t let yourself look foolish.”
And while reason and rationality are gifts of God that allow us to understand the world and know him better, they’re not the only tools we have at our disposal. When the Word became incarnate, he took on flesh. To be explicit, Jesus had a body with a heart, in every sense of the word.
For ancient Jews, the heart symbolized the intersection of your physical life, emotional life, and intellectual life. Though there are ample warnings to avoid being driven by the unchecked desires of the heart, there’s no implication that every affection it produces is evil—just that it is desperately sick and in need of rehabilitation and a worthy affection.
In his sinlessness, Jesus never gave in to these unchecked desires. But that doesn’t mean he went through life completely unaffected by his experiences. We know that he wept at the death of his friend and that he experienced deep turmoil before his own crucifixion. He was a man, fully embodied, not a deity in a skin suit.
The absurdity of the Christmas story is that the creator of the world could do something as common as passing through the birth canal; that the Eternal Word of God might wordlessly cry out in hunger or heartbreak.
The story is too good to be true. Yet, our hearts desperately want the story to be true.
It’s a common misconception that belief in anything requires something like absolute, rationalized certainty about the truth of the thing in question, as if we might be able to disentangle our hearts and our minds and arrive at bare, unadulterated facts.
In my experience, though, belief requires embodiment. “When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”2 When you act like you believe in the living God, I think you will find, in time, that you really do believe.
This is my challenge to you. I don’t know the status of your heart right now. This is a complicated time of year; what brings joy and sweet nostalgia for some can be a harbinger of grief and pain for others. But, wherever you find yourself, God is happy to meet you there. Jesus has already done the hardest work; he descended from the heavenly realm to the dusty, messy realm of nature.
He got his feet dirty. He toiled and sweat and cried. He laughed and conversed and contemplated. He submitted to the Father with joy. Because of that, we can approach God without fear.
So, identify the places where your belief is lacking. Maybe you doubt God’s existence at all; maybe you doubt the limitlessness of his love; maybe you doubt that he truly understands your heart. Instead of allowing that doubt to rule you, trade your anxious ruminations for rituals of faith. Pray regularly—set an alarm as a reminder if you have to. (I do!) Participate in church. Study the Bible. Read some C.S. Lewis. Remember that Jesus walked the earth in a body not unlike yours, and that this embodied experience was essential to his mission of redemption.
You are loved, you are seen, and you are known by the God of all creation.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
John 14:1
From the archives:
“But, rather than focusing on the way things have changed, or might change, or will change in the future, my goal is to cultivate a Christmas spirit wholly founded in the season itself, and not the accouterments.
You might say that I’m taking a page out of Ebenezer Scrooge’s book.”
A visual reminder:
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity