You mock the idea of a God who took on a human body; who cried, who hungered, who slept, who bled, who even had bowels. You find that ridiculous. I understand why. If I believed God was obsessed mainly with asserting dominance, enforcing submission, or staying untouched by our weakness, I would laugh too.
But maybe that reaction says more about us than about God.
The scandal of the Incarnation is not that God became “dirty with flesh.” The scandal is that God loved enough to step into the human condition instead of staying distant and comfortable. The God of Scripture did not hover above suffering and shout commands from a celestial throne; He entered the world we broke. He did not approach us wearing sterile gloves. He came as a child. He came hungry. He came vulnerable. He came into the full reality of embodied life, the beauty of it and the embarrassment of it.
And that tells you everything about His character.
If you were God, you would never stoop so low. You would never humble yourself like that. But YHWH did. And that shatters every shallow idea of God built purely on power and intimidation. Christianity says God’s greatness is not proven by how far above us He stands, but by how far He was willing to come down to redeem us.
Jesus didn’t come demanding empty ritual. He came demanding reconciliation, love, truth, justice, and relationship. That’s why He could say in the Sermon on the Mount that if you approach the altar to worship but your brother has something against you, leave the sacrifice and go make it right first. Only then come back to offer your gift. What kind of God says that? A God who cares more about hearts than gestures. A God who values restored people over robotic worship. A God who isn’t insecure about His throne and doesn’t need flattery to feel divine.
So yep, Christians believe in a God who entered flesh. A God who felt our weakness. A God who walked our streets and shared our humanity down to its most ordinary realities. And instead of making Him smaller, that makes Him infinitely more glorious.
Because the highest God chose the lowest road. And that is not ridiculous,
that is breathtaking.
@fakecorykinnan Hey Cory, I know he’s not draft eligible for the upcoming season but can I get your thoughts on Dylan Raiola and what you saw from his freshman year?