(As I mentioned last week, Paul Peterson, one of our parishioners, recently shared a brilliant paper he had written on the mystery of the Incarnation. With his permission, I am offering it to you for your reflection and inspiration as we prepare to celebrate our Lord’s birth at Christmas. Last week, he offered some very worthwhile reflections on the mystery of the Incarnation. As we hurry toward Christmas, we benefit this week from his reflections on the eternal plan of God in the Incarnation.)
Saint Paul’s first experience of Jesus Christ was on the road to Damascus. Paul was so overwhelmed by this encounter with the risen Christ and his sudden conversion that he was not really able, at that point, to fathom completely the identity of Christ or the mystery of the Incarnation. He would, eventually, with experience and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. From prison in Rome, where you can imagine that he had lots of time to think, Paul deepened his understanding of the true role and identity of Jesus in the eternal plan of the father.
One way to think about the basic time sequence of human salvation is this: 1) Creation, 2) the fall of the human race, and 3) the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. However, Paul came to understand that creation was not really the first step in the story of our salvation. Think about what he wrote to the church in Ephesus:
Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the great pleasure of his will to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1: 3-10).
This is the focal point of the mystery hidden from all eternity: Before creation, before our first parents, before sin, the Word made Flesh takes first place in God’s plan. Jesus is not simply an afterthought or last-minute rescue plan in God’s mind because Adam and Eve sinned. Rather, Christ is the focal point, the center of gravity, the heart of the Father’s plan from all eternity.
The Second Vatican Council expressed it this way: “The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every heart, and the answer to all its yearnings” (The Church Today, #45).
That is incredible, but what boggles the mind even more is that before the Father decided to create the world, he thought of you and of me, and our relationship to his Son, Jesus. We did not just happen. God chose us and we have been given a place in his plan, that we may be “holy and blameless” in Jesus (Ephesians 1:4).
How is it that Jesus who was always first in God’s mind showed up last in the familiar timeline of salvation: Creation, fall, Incarnation? The concept is not hard to understand. The plan or blueprint of something always comes first, even though its realization comes last. And so it was with Jesus: He was always first in the plan of the Father but only enters history at its final stage-the fullness of time.
The various and far-flung parts of creation only make sense when they come together in Christ. It helps to look at all created things as if they are scattered pieces of a beautiful picture puzzle. It’s only when the pieces are put back in their proper places that they form the original image of Christ, thus displaying their true beauty and meaning.
St. Paul makes this point in his Letter to the Colossians:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of his cross. (1: 15-20)
What is meant by thrones, dominions, rulers and powers? To understand these strange beings or forces, we need to remember that the communities of Ephesus and Colossae in Asia Minor did not come to Christianity from a religious vacuum. The inhabitants of this region shared very strong beliefs about who was in charge of this world. It was the age of specialization, and they believed that between themselves and the divinity there were all sorts of intermediaries called thrones, dominions, rulers or powers. Each of these spiritual powers had its own proper area of expertise and sphere of influence.
The role of religion, in the view of these people, was to recognize this system, and to keep each celestial being happy, satisfied and off their backs. When Paul introduced the gospel to this region and taught that Jesus is our mediator with the Father, the people accepted that as good news. But they wanted to know just where Christ fit into their system. Just what was Jesus’ area of specialization?
With a magnificent proclamation of the role of Christ, Paul lets his readers know just what Jesus is in charge of. He is Lord of everything: the cosmos, the universe, the past, the future, every person, place or thing! Jesus does not just fit into their system, he is the system! In him all things hold together.
In Paul’s view of creation, there is nothing in this world that makes sense apart from Jesus Christ. Every creature in some way points to Christ. Indeed, if the singing of the birds and the humming of the insects could be formed into a chorus and if the rustling breeze and tinkling rain could have a voice and the roar of the ocean could be put into words, they would all have one thing to say: “We were made for the sake of Jesus Christ.”
Divine self-giving, the birth of Christ signaled incredibly good news: God immensely loved the world he created and wanted all to come to healing, salvation and the fullness of life. “God so loved the world,” proclaims the Gospel of John, “that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (3:17).
As the eminent Scripture scholar, the late Father Raymond Brown, observes in A Retreat with John the Evangelist: That You May Have Life, the Gospel of John does not stress the future coming of Jesus nearly as much as the other Gospels do. John prefers to accent, rather, the supreme importance of Christ’s first coming – the Incarnation itself. “True,” Brown writes, “the Son will come back from heaven, but more important for our understanding of him (and God) is that he came from heaven in the first place.” According to Brown, John’s is the only Gospel in which “Jesus himself speaks about his previous life with God” and which emphasizes his coming as the Word made flesh.
“For most of the New Testament,” Brown adds, “God’s supreme act of love is embodied in Jesus’ self-giving on the cross. Incarnation brings into the picture an earlier act of love: the divine self-giving in becoming one of us…. Indeed some theologians have so appreciated the intensity of the love in the Incarnation that they have wondered whether that alone might not have saved the world even if Jesus was never crucified.”
(These powerful reflections give us pause to think, don’t they? We’ll let scripture scholars debate about whether or not Jesus’ crucifixion and Resurrection are essential aspects of God’s plan of salvation, but Paul Peterson certainly helps us to understand even more deeply the significance of the Incarnation. Stay tuned; next week, he will offer his final reflections that will help us even more as we draw close to Christmas.)