Thoughts on the Incarnation

 A few years ago there was a song (used for Joan of Arc TV show, which I liked)

What if God were one of us, 

just a stranger on a bus

just a slob like one of us. 

Trying to find his way home. 

Those are haunting, if somehwat irreverent words. Of course, the easy answer is "God was one of us, but even though he didn't ride a bus he probably would have, and he wasn't a slob." Slob here, I think, was not meant as a hoarder or dirty, disheveled, disordered person, but a working class, non-elite person with no special qualifications or prestige or anything to distinguish him. 

God did become one of us, although we will never in this life really understand the mystery of the incarnation. We want to know God knows what it's like to be human, and he does know the physical pain, the loneliness and rejection, the misunderstanding and frustration, of being human. And, I'll credit Dallas Jenkins here in his portrayal of Christ in "The Chosen," he knows interpersonal joy and celebration. 

But we stop because, theologically, we have to say he didn't sin, and we simply can't separate our human experience from endemic sin. It creeps in everywhere, like yeast in bread. No matter how tasty the bread, the yeast is still there. Existence without the leaven takes a great deal of imagination, or something more supernatural, for us. We get glimpses of it, I think, though.  Mystics and prophets perhaps get more than just a glimpse but they have sacrificed a lot to get there. 

Instead of saying "Jesus knew human life but not fully because he didn't sin," it might be better to envy him and recognize our deep yearning for such a consciousness and a world not stained with rebellion, hatred, selfness, and desires we do not need.