The incomprehen- sibility of God is not that of an irrational, alien cosmic dictator who makes up rules that infringe on our otherwise autonomous self-sufficient personality, and who threatens us with violence if we don't comply. This is the strange idea born of servile fear. Indeed, God is truly incomprehensible, but His is the incomprehensibility of Love.
We come to pray to God, and at Christmas we gaze upon the image of a baby.
Not because we thought it would be a good idea to represent God as a baby, but because God really became a baby.
We didn't make this up. It happened. God came into the world. He made Himself "small" so that He could enter into our lives.
What does this mean for us? We can only grasp this by faith. We can only live the reality of this by trust and love. Let us ask the Lord to stir up this faith, trust, and love in our hearts.
If we let God into our hearts—the God who has become so small for our sake—we will begin to discover what this is all about. God has come to us. God has given everything. He has poured Himself out in Love. He can do this because He is Love.
And He has come to be the One who accompanies us in our misery and leads us out and beyond all of it. The fullness of the revelation of God’s love is mercy.
This baby is God's mercy. The God who is Love wants to be close to us, to save us. His name is Jesus.
Jesus is the gift of God’s merciful Love to the world, to restore—indeed to transform—human beings into His image and likeness. He is the reason for the joy that calls out to our hearts at Christmas.
