Did you ever play the Game of Why with a three-year-old? It’s a fascinating intellectual endeavor and one which you are not very likely to win. It is also a good reminder to us that we should never stop asking the question, “Why?”, especially then it comes that what really matters. Faith needs to seek understanding. Asking “Why?” helps us get there.
Let’s take the Incarnation for example. Last I checked Almighty God could do pretty much anything he wanted. So why would he become human? That would be like you or me becoming canine to save all of Dogkind. (A totally pointless endeavor, incidentally, since all dogs go to heaven and are not in need of redemption.)
It boils down to the way relationships work and the demands of justice. At the Fall, we humans had seriously injured our relationship with God. So much so, that we were incapable of restoring it on our own. Human nature was marred by sin. Sin is the deliberate separation of oneself from God. God is the source of all life. Thus, separation from God, “sin,” results in death. Not all at once, mind you, but the end result is same.
Now, since humanity did the sinning, humanity has to pay the price. And this is essentially what went from the Fall right up to the Incarnation. Humanity was subject to sin and death.
But this was not God’s intention when he created humanity. God had much bigger plans for us. And while sin kept those plans from happening right away, nothing can defeat the will of God in the end. So, if humanity had to pay the price, God who can do anything he wants, would simply become human, pay the price for sin once and for all, and then humanity would be free once again to enter into full communion and eternal beatitude with God. As the saying goes, “Christ paid a debt he did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay.”
Of course, the first step in becoming human is to be conceived. In this, Christ is no different from the rest of us. But God never does violence to us; thus, the free cooperation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the special grace she received for her unique vocation as the Mother of God. After conception, its nine months in the womb, and finally, if we are lucky, birth.
It’s the birth of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, that we are celebrating today.
Perhaps one of the blessings the pandemic is the absence of much of the noise that comes with “the Holiday Season.” We are less distracted these days and can pay more attention to the true meaning of Christmas.
Come, let us adore him.