Incarnate Mystery

Sooner or later, all pon­der­ing takes you to the court of mys­tery. Regard­less of the study, you even­tu­ally hit the wall of the unknown and unknow­able. By now the sci­ences were sup­posed to have replaced all reli­gion. Just the oppo­site has hap­pened. The god­less Berlin Wall fell two decades ago and the churches reopened. Peo­ple lined up down the street to have their chil­dren bap­tized in the foun­tains of city squares. Mere exis­tence is not enough. We really can’t live on bread alone.
Christ­mas became attached to the dark­est days and cold­est nights cen­turies ago. It is one of our many tra­di­tions that attempts to express how we feel about the Incar­na­tion. It is also a reflec­tion about our own com­ing into being — from dark­ness to light. The mys­tery does not end in con­scious­ness but becomes even more pro­found. With what­ever intel­lec­tual tools we have, we probe this mys­tery called life. From ancient his­tory to futur­ism, we seek to see a big­ger pic­ture than that of our own lives.
What­ever we do on earth, we do with the real­iza­tion that time is run­ning out. Mor­tal­ity is one-hundred per­cent. In response, we set­tle for mere creature-hood or aspire to some sort of life beyond. Come Christ­mas Day, some will focus on presents, some on mis­sion soup lines, some on the orig­i­nal event that God became a baby. Beyond the tra­di­tional view is the real­iza­tion that we too share in incar­nate Deity. There is a lit­tle bit of God in all of us.
Human exis­tence has never been fully explained. The sci­ences have described lots of “what” and “how” but never a “why” that is suf­fi­cient. Sooner or later, you have to resort to some­thing beyond or above. That “Some­thing” is the real ques­tion. Is Deity benev­o­lent? Does the Uni­verse care that I suf­fer? Are we merely caught in some cos­mic machine?
Pon­der­ing the mys­tery is not an end in itself. It opens the door to con­crete actions. It works itself out in how we treat oth­ers and our­selves. The Christ­mas gift to myself this year is the same as last — to pon­der the Incar­nate Mys­tery one more time.