Christmas Meditation: Why Then? Why There?

One of the questions that my pastor, Mark Stuenzi, answered in his sermon this past Sunday morning on Luke 2 was “Why here?” Why was the firstborn of Mary born in a stable and placed in a manger? That question really doesn’t carry the heavy emotional baggage for us that it would have carried for Mary and Joseph. Here are Mary and Joseph traveling some 90 miles at the most inopportune time for expecting parents “due” to a decree issued by Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1). One of the last things that any mother would wish to do, especially when she is anticipating the birth of her firstborn, would be to travel tens of miles over rough terrain when the time for her to give birth was too close for ease of mind and travel. It was most definitely not the ideal scenario for the birth of a child, let alone the birth of a firstborn who was to be given “the throne of his father David,” who would “reign over the house of Jacob forever,” and of whose “kingdom there would be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). In a world that boasted (as our world still does) in the births of the powerful and the noble (1 Corinthians 1:26), for a child destined for an eternal kingship to be born in circumstances like this was utter foolishness, drop-the-jaw folly. But such were the circumstances of the Holy One who was to be born to Mary.

Why was the Christ Child born into circumstances such as these (Why then?)? Why was the Holy One of God born in the most unsanitary place imaginable, namely, a manure filled and urine stained stable (Why there?)? Why would God ordain that the first breath of the infant Messiah’s lungs take in stench permeated air? Why then and why there?

On our way home after the sermon, I began to think of those questions in the context of the Hypostatic Union, that is, in the context of the union of the two natures (divine and human) of Christ in the one Person of Christ. I wondered if this great doctrine of the Hypostatic Union held any answers to our perplexing “why then” and “why there” questions. I am now convinced that it indeed does. It teaches that true and complete humanity came in union with true and complete deity in such a way that they can never be separated and yet never confused. “In this union God has become Man without ceasing to be God, and man is taken up into the very being of God without ceasing to be Man” (T.F. Torrance). This doctrine is a mystery that should give our little minds unending opportunities to worship the Christ who came to seek and to save that which was lost.

But how does this awesome doctrine help us answer our questions? With regard to the Hypostatic Union, Gregory Nazianzus (early church father) wrote, “That which is not taken up (assumed) is not healed.” Cyril of Alexandria wrote, “The thing not taken up is not saved.” One of the questions I ask the seniors who are taking their senior oral examination with me is, “Did Christ take up our pre-fall or post-fall humanity?” Every senior thus far has answered, “Our pre-fall humanity.” Their reasoning is that because Jesus did not have a sin nature he could not take up our post-fall humanity. I always first applaud their zeal for the sinlessness of Christ, but then ask this follow-up question, “Did the pre-fall humanity of Adam and Eve need to be redeemed?” To which they have all answered, “No.” “So what needed to be redeemed?” They answer, “The post-fall humanity of Adam and Eve.”
The saving significance of the Hypostatic Union is that Jesus took up our post-fall humanity yet without sin. Jesus actually assumed our brokenness and misery in the incarnation. He did not assume our humanity as it existed before sin. No, he took up all of our humanity that needed to be healed and saved. Jesus assumed the entirety of the flesh of fallen humanity apart from sin. Why? Because the unassumed is unhealed!

How does this aspect of the great doctrine of the Hypostatic Union help us answer our “why then” and “why there” questions? By giving us a tangible and real demonstration that would aid our understanding of what the Messiah came to do, namely, take up the entirety of our post-fall humanity apart from sin including the worst of our human misery and brokenness. He was born in a manure-filled and urine-stained stable, the most unsanitary place imaginable, so that he might save us from the dung of our human misery. His infant lungs took in stench-permeated air that he might rescue us from the reek of our human brokenness.

So feel free this Christmas season to breathe in the stench and reek of the Christmas story for God’s glory and your salvivic joy. Hallelujah, what a Savior!