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1 John 1:1-3
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That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (ESV)
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The Touchable God
Wednesday of Advent 4
22 December 2010
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Our heavenly Father knows our weaknesses. He has seen to our need by condescending to our level in the Incarnation of the Word. This humiliation of God by the Incarnation Athanasius describes as a teacher who gets down to the level of his pupils. God knows because we are flesh that we are creatures of sense. Therefore he makes himself an object of sense through the Incarnation of the Word. The invisible God becomes visible. The untouchable God becomes touchable. The immortal God allows himself to be subject to death. And all for us.
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Athanasius of Alexandria
"[The Word of God] deals with [us] as a good teacher with his pupils, coming down to their level and using simple means. St. Paul says as much: 'For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.' (1Co 1:21). Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense. The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak halfway. He became Himself an object for their senses, so that those who are seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body.
"Human and human-minded as men were, therefore, to whichever side they looked in the sensible world they found themselves taught the truth. Were they awe-stricken by creation? They beheld it confessing Christ as Lord. Did their minds tend to regard men as gods? The uniqueness of the Savior's works marked Him, alone of men, as Son of God... Were they inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead? Then the fact that the Savior had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death. For this reason was He both born and appeared as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, eclipsing by his works all other human deeds, He might recall men from all the paths of error to know the Father. As He says Himself, 'I came to seek and to save that which was lost'" (Luke 19:10).
Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God, 15
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Prayer
O Word of God, thank You that You became an object of sense in Your holy Incarnation. Amen.
For faithful attendance at the Christmas services of Memorial Lutheran Church
For Cristy Gaus, who is gravely ill from a brain aneurism, that the Lord Jesus would watch over her and grant her healing
For our friends and fellow believers in Siberia, that they would be maintained by the Word in their faithful confession
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Art: LEONARDO da Vinci Annunciation 1472-75
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 © Scott R. Murray, 2010
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