The whole subject of the Incarnation is so huge and monumental that we tend to miss one of the great themes. The idea that God would punch a hole in the universe and take our flesh is so grand, so amazing, so earth shattering, of course we have to celebrate, gild and decorate, feast and throw parties—this event warrants it. Our whole salvation is staked on the outrageous claim that divine nature was joined with humanity so God could live a life we should have lived and die a death we should have died—while in our humanity so that we could become the objects of God’s most esteemed affection. His desire for us was of such magnitude that God would subject himself to utter humiliation so he could be with us, so he could sing over us, and give himself and the abundance of inner-Trinitarian love to his rebellious creatures. There is not a day that passes when I do not in some sense think about the idea of God’s incarnation. But let me tell you how it strikes me, not just one season of the year, but everyday of my life.

The incarnation points to God’s concern with common things, the redemption of common things. We tend to forget this most of the time. The legacy of God’s people from day one was to substitute a true daily godliness with an occasional godliness, namely religious ceremony and the doing of religious deeds. Constantly, the prophets saw godliness in the common everyday eroded by people consoling, congratulating and deceiving themselves with an abundance of worship, religious ceremony, and sacrifices (Isaiah 1:10-17; Amos 5:21-24; I Samuel 15). It was left to them in every generation to unmask each false piety and return godliness to an everyday dress and lifestyle. Micah’s words are representative of glorifying religious ceremony while ignoring it in the common stuff of everyday life:

With what will I come before the Lord and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6: 6-8)

The drama of the Incarnation was such a mundane affair. The High King is content to greet this world without the usual fanfare that greets child-kings. No attendants or retainers of pedigree or fashion, just common folk in a remote place. If heaven could have restrained the angles and a magical star had never burst its bounds, nothing would have signaled the arrival of the world’s hope. When Jesus began his public ministry, he gave fair warning that he would cut from the same cloth as the prophets before him—his message of godliness centers around common everyday life. In his first sermon, two themes were evident: people love religious show and feel righteous with an occasional show of religious pomp (Matthew 6: 1-18), and the real issues of sin, death and redemption are in the everyday attitudes and dispositions of the heart. In this same sermon Jesus says that a person’s sneer has the seeds of murder, and that the unbridled tongue holds the dangers of hell. Further, if you have a grudge or murderous heart toward your neighbor, reconciliation is more important than any religious act.

My oldest daughter Bethan and I were discussing this issue the other day and we both agreed that Flannery O’Connor captures the way we miss the real issues of godliness in the everyday stuff, yet at the same time we can appear to be the most pious of all. In her short story, “The Lame Shall Enter First,” O’Connor unmasks the emptiness and cruelty of piety that is only done for selfish appearances.   In the story Sheppard is continually urging his son, Norton, whom he despises, on to good words like sharing, helping the needy, and giving away his treasured possessions. Sheppard is a model of this before his son -- working, doing good, helping the less fortunate children he teaches and he even brings home a young scoundrel to live in their home. All the while he denies his son, his only child, starving for his attention and affection. In the end Sheppard realized too late his own attempts to be good were empty. He had missed the whole point of redemption—which was embodied in a son who was in his home everyday. While he paraded his virtue for all his friends to see, his poor son commits suicide. O’Connor captures the horror of when he sees his religious self unveiled:

His heart constricted with repulsion for himself so clear and intense that he grasped for breath. He had stuffed his own emptiness with good works like a glutton. He has ignored his own child to feed his vision of himself. He saw the clear-eyed Devil, the sounder of hearts, leering at him…His image of himself shriveled until everything was black before him. He sat there paralyzed, aghast.

I never read that without inwardly gasping and wondering about my own motives.

The flip side of the Incarnation, which I think about a lot, is that if God entered nature to redeem all things, then I have a front row seat to and participate every moment of every day in a cosmic drama. I walk among mysteries where God is present and cares about my common life and these common things that are not really common but messengers from the hallows which proclaim—Immanuel, God is with us!