Solemnity of the Incarnation 2023
The prophet Isaiah was, in my opinion, a master of irony. Although King Ahaz, who was king over a territory about the size of a Texas county and thus a kind of rump king, had allied his little nation with the huge Assyrian empire, that big gang of thieves was attacking this little royal thief. So he was surveying his defenses to see what kind of fight he could manage. Moreover, Ahaz was one of the most unjust, unfaithful leaders in the history of Israel. He had even screwed up his own succession by offering his only son as a sacrifice to pagan gods. So Isaiah comes to him with his own son, Shear-jashub (a name that means “a fraction shall escape”) and tells him to ask for a sign of divine favor from “the Lord your God,” even though by his actions, Ahaz has proved that the Lord was not his God. Ahaz refuses, with fake piety declining to “put the Lord to the test.” So Isaiah then claims the Lord as his own God, and promises him that “the virgin” would conceive and bear an heir for Ahaz and Israel. Moreover, the invader, despite superior numbers, would fail in the attempt to take over Jerusalem and Israel. And that’s the way it happened, just as Isaiah had promised.
God is a master at plot twists, isn’t He? Eve and Adam do the one thing their Creator and Friend tells them not to do, and not only doesn’t God wipe them out and start over, He plans to redeem them by becoming human and dying for all humans’ welfare. When God does wipe out humanity in a great flood, even the one family He does save and make a covenant with offers Him one disappointing result after another, until He chooses and calls Abraham to do His will. Abraham can’t get Sarah pregnant so he uses her slave-girl to get Ishmael as his heir, but ends up with Sarah having a boy when she was like 90 years old and sending the slave and her son away. Over and over the Lord does what is not expected, sometimes what is not even possible, and the results are awesome.
So God does become human, as St. Luke relates in the Gospel. Eve told God “no, I won’t do your will”; Mary told God, “be it done to me according to your will.” Adam told God, “no, I’d rather do it the serpent’s way”; Jesus told His Divine Father, “yes, thy law is within my heart.”
The whole of reality can be summed up in the line “God so loved the world that He gave us His only-begotten Son, that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.” I like to use Christ’s splendid analogy. The Lord pours out His blessings and grace like a soaking rain over a large area. Good folk and bad alike. Saints and sinners. All are offered the gift of life-giving grace like drought-destroying rain on parched soil. For hundreds of generations, humans generally refused the gift. There were a handful of exceptions like Enoch, Elijah and Moses, but most folks didn’t understand or didn’t accept the gifts. They were weak and sinful, just like us without Christ. But when the Incarnation happened, when the Son took on human flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary, a human being (also divine) took shape who would have the words “I come to do Your will, O God” as a kind of eternal motto. He did God’s will, even all the way to dying a very painful and humiliating death on the cross, but then was raised up, back to divine status manifest in power. He has enabled us sacramentally to become like Him, like His mother and all the saints, ourselves saying “yes” to God’s will. What a plan! What a reversal of fortune! What a divine plot-twist in our favor. To Him give praise and tell everyone you know. Do not restrain your lips.
