Fr. Michael Williams

At the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we learn that, “God created mankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them”. This gives every human person a great dignity, as each person is made in the image and likeness of God.

But today’s gospel reveals to us that the dignity of the human person has been raised even further. By “the power of the Most High”, the Son of God assumes human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary; the Word becomes flesh and dwells amongst us; God unites His Divine Nature with human nature in the person of Jesus; the natural is united with the Supernatural.

The ancient prophecy of Isaiah that, “the virgin is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’” comes to fruition. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, and so God assumes human nature within her womb. Mary’s womb becomes the house where God will begin His residence on earth. And in His life on earth Jesus will go on to experience the fullness of human life that will include joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, well-being and suffering. Since the Incarnation - God becoming man- God has experienced what it is to be human.

CS Lewis has said “God descends to reascend. He comes down…down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him”. God comes down from Heaven to raise humanity up to Heaven.

The fact that ‘God-is-with-us’ in the person of Jesus is what sets Christianity apart from all the other major religions. For example, to say that Jesus is both Divine and human, is totally unacceptable to Jews and Muslims . For those religions God is totally other; He could never lower Himself to become human. Yet the Christian Faith reveals that, “We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God…[who] by the power of the Holy Spirit became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man”. If we truly believe God is all powerful, we must believe that God can become man, for as the angel Gabriel tells Mary, “nothing is impossible to God”.

To accept the reality of God becoming man requires a great act of faith. The late Cardinal Basil Hume once said, that to make an act of faith in God becoming man, “demands a humility of mind which is not characteristic of contemporary man”. To accept the mysterious power of God in our lives requires a humility like that of Mary, the humble “handmaid of the Lord”. The gospel does reveal to us that Mary was “deeply disturbed” by God’s mysterious plan for her, yet her unconquerable faith in the goodness of God lead her to say, “let what you have said be done to me”.

St Paul calls the Incarnation “the revelation of a mystery kept secret for endless ages, but now so clear that it must be broadcast to pagans everywhere”. Let us pray that the great mystery of Christmas, the fact that God became man, will be central to all of our celebrations in the coming week and let us broadcast this great mystery to others through our words and actions.