As we celebrate Christmas, it is worthwhile to pause and ask ourselves, “Why did God choose to be human? Why would the all-powerful God decide to take the lowly form of a helpless babe? Why would the inhabitant of heaven ─ a place of perfect joy and peace ─ descend to become an inhabitant of the earth ─ an abode of so much pain and suffering? Why would the Creator humble himself as one of his creatures?” Short answer: because of love.
The all-time favorite verse of many sums it up, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This, too, deserves our close attention. What did it mean for man to perish and why was he endangered to suffer this lot? To perish is to be punished in hell, and to be condemned in hell is a just penalty for sin.
In eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God. Henceforth, sin entered the world, and all the descendants of the first man and the first woman who ever lived down through all generations became vulnerable to sin. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Further, the Scriptures say that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23) and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb 9:22).
In the Old Testament, the “dying for sin” and the “shedding of blood” were done through animal sacrifices in the temple. These requirements of the old law, however, were but “a shadow of the good things to come”(Heb 10:1). In reality, the blood of bulls and goats never took away sins. It was the human person who committed sin who should have died, and his soul thrown to hell. The sinful man cannot do anything by himself to be saved. One sin is enough reason for him to perish.
God was not happy with this situation. He needed to find a way to help man get out of this quandary. He desired to satisfy the requirement of his own Divine justice, yet he also wanted to spare man the agony of hell. And what was the solution? Substitute himself for the penalty that man had to pay. Take the punishment of death and save anyone who puts his faith in God’s supreme sacrifice.
But there was a problem here. How could God die? By his Divine nature, he cannot. He is the Great I am. He has no beginning and he has no end; he lives forever. So how could he die? By becoming a mortal man like us.
And so Jesus had to be born. Born of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit as truly God and truly man. Born as a baby. Born to grow and live among us ─ teaching us who our Father is and what his ways are, giving us a model of how to live, sympathizing with our weaknesses, and being like us in everything except sin. Born to die so we can live; and dying, only to rise again so we, too, can rise again after passing from this life. And rising to ascend back to heaven, opening its gates for our own ascension, but before that, seated at the right hand of the Father and interceding for us. God chose to be human all because of love. Shouldn’t we love him in return? Have we loved him enough?
Have a Merry Christmas.