Advent: Why has He come?

You might not have noticed yet, but it's the Christmas season.  I know, I know..."Really?  I didn't notice.  I mean, aside from the EVERYTHING CHRISTMAS IS EVERYTHING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I CAN'T TAKE IT" sorry...I think I was channeling a retail employee for a moment there.  My point is, it's Christmas, and that also means that it's time for one essay and discussion after another about "the real meaning of Christmas" or "what Christmas is all about."

Well, let's start simple:


 But more specifically: why did Christ come?  Why did God move to effect salvation of man by sending His Son to Earth to become human, to live the life he did, to die, and to rise again?  To examine all the implications of and answers to that question, would require a book and perhaps someday I'll be given the chance to write that.  But I want to speak to the presuppositions underlying the issue, as well as share some of the more thought-provoking reading I've been blessed to engage in lately, thanks to the new house which gives me my own "study" to do said reading.

One of the remarkable things about Christianity is the nature of God as He reveals Himself in His Word.  I am going to turn over a not-small portion of this post to Francis Schaeffer, because I don't feel I can explain it better without simply plagiarizing him:

The historic Christian answer concerning verifiable facts and knowing turns on who God is, on who is there.  The God who is there according to the Scriptures is the personal-infinite God.  There is no other god like this God.  It is ridiculous to say that all religions teach the same things when they disagree at the fundamental point as to what God is like.  The gods of the East are infinite by definition--the definition being "god is all that is."  This is the pan-everything-ism god.  The gods of the West have tended to be personal but limited; such were the gods of the Greeks, Romans and Germans.  But the God of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, is the infinite-personal God.

[...]

How then is God's creation related to Himself and to itself?  On the side of God's infinity there is a break between God and the whole of His creation.  I am as separated from God in the area of His being the Creator and infinite and I being the creature and finite, as is the atom or energy particle.  I am no closer to God on this side than the machine.

However on the side of God's personality, the break comes between man and the rest of creation.  In terms of modern thought this is a dynamic conception of which modern man and modern theology know nothing.  So Schweitzer identified himself with the hippopotamus, for he did not understand that man's relationship is upward; and therefore he looked downward to a creature which does many of the same things as himself.  But on the side of personality, if our relationship is upward, then everything concerning man's "mannishness" is in place.

 So what does this have to do with the question above?  What relevance does this have to do with the season of Advent, when we celebrate the coming of God in Jesus Christ?  It's relevant because Jesus came not as an impersonal force, not as a new faceless edict from a prophet...He came as a man.  Jesus came as a man who then built personal, deep relationships with other people.  He preached for certain, but reading the Bible we see that His biggest, most transformative work was done in the lives of the men and women He was closest to: He healed many, but His disciples He worked with beyond physical pains down to their hearts, loving them gently and leading them to become the men who would boldly proclaim His name to the world. 

God is infinite and His infinite nature is something that leads many to say things like "We can't really ever understand God" in the sense that trying is a fool's errand.  But no one has been asked to express the inexpressible: it is God's good purpose to give us Himself personally just as much as to awe us with His infinity.  "The heavens proclaim the glory of God," wrote the psalmist, and gazing into the sky and seeing the vastness of the universe, knowing as we do now how much more vast and great it is than they could have dreamed those thousands of years ago both in a macro and micro sense, we wonder exactly how much greater our God is if this universe is just a speck compared to His majesty.  But we are edified, and humbled, by the man Jesus Christ who came to Earth to live the life we can never live, die the death we deserve to die, and to look broken, rebellious sinners in the face and bring restoration, healing and love to them.  Praise God, those words came to me through His Word and His Spirit, and changed a heart once buried in sin.

And so this advent season, we look back to His first coming, and ahead, to His second.  May that day come soon, to give rest to the weary and to complete the work begun on the cross and at the grave.