Have you ever wondered about the mystery of incarnation? How God, the OMNI one, could localize himself down to the point of being human with out violating the essence of who He is? It is the very act of incarnation that allows us to understand and relate to His being on a personal level. Prior to this, our relationship with God was confined to the formal, symbolic, ritualized system of a religion.
Beware of anyone who has an answer to the question of incarnation. I certainly don't. Yet it is this mystery that reveals the personal nature of God in terms we can understand in Jesus. The veil of unknowing does not separate him from us.
We cannot pierce that veil by act of will or desire of heart. God is the only one who can cross that veil. Therein lay the mystery of incarnation. The one, who in his transcendence, is beyond all we can conceive and understand has made himself immanent. It is beyond human conception. How can this be?
For millennia's, man has related to the absolute transcendence of the divine by creating rituals, symbols, myths and magic. This is the language that speaks to us on a sub-conscious level. It resonates with our perception of a mystery that is in the veil of unknowing. Hiding a God who is completely beyond understanding. God, the unmanifested one, was not personal at all in this way of thinking. The notion of God became a metaphor for the life force that permeates the universe and is beyond human understanding.
We created many gods who oversaw our lives. We worshiped the created things, nature, ancestral spirits and the unknown great source of life. It is into this consciousness of man that God decided to make himself known. The single God idea
How can that be? Incarnation, God who permeates every point in the universe yet embodied in a man who lived 2,000 years ago. It is a paradox and mystery. Yet because God made himself known, he is knowable to man. Though Jesus we can enter into a relationship with God on a personal level. It defies logic and human reason how this can be.
God who is transcendent and unknowable is immanent and known. I've come to the place where I don't need to know how it is possible; I live with the interplay and tension of these opposing ideas realizing that the mystery of it is acceptable. It is only our hubris and modern western mind that tries to reduce everything to a rational explanation. To remove the mysteries of life is the curse of our modern era.
Great stuff, here... hurts my brain to try to wrap around this concept but my faith demands that I try!
Posted by: Tony Myles | 26 September 2005 at 11:20 PM