The Audacity of the Incarnation

There is something almost inappropriate about Christmas.

Not the decorations or the consumerism — those are distractions. I mean the theological nerve of it all. The audacity. The sheer holy recklessness of God deciding that the rescue of creation would come not through thunder, not through terror, not through a cosmic display of dominance — but through infancy.

The eternal Son did not appear as a man. He did not descend fully formed. He did not bypass development, weakness, or dependence. He entered humanity at its most helpless point.

That alone should stop us.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
Not visited. Not hovered. Became.

Flesh. Nerves. Lungs that had to learn oxygen. Eyes that had to learn light. Hands that would someday heal lepers — first grasping Mary’s finger for stability.

And somehow, when we imagine this moment, we imagine it solemn. Heavy. Grave. Sacred in the narrowest sense.

But Scripture gives us reason to believe it was also joyful.

The God Who Rejoices

We are uncomfortable with joy inside the Godhead.

We tolerate majesty. We allow holiness. We can even accept love, as long as it remains dignified and restrained. But joy? Laughter? Delight shared within the Trinity? That feels irreverent to us — which says more about us than it does about God.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness… He will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

That verse does not describe a stoic deity reluctantly tolerating redemption. It describes a God who rejoices — even exults. The Hebrew language there is exuberant, almost excessive.

If God rejoices over redeemed humanity, is it really so difficult to imagine the Father, Son, and Spirit rejoicing over the plan that would make redemption possible?

Before there was a manger, there was agreement. Before there was a virgin’s womb, there was divine consent. The incarnation was not an emergency patch — it was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). This was decided before stars existed.

Which raises a question we rarely ask: What was the tone of that decision?

The Humor of Humility

Paul tells us that Christ, “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself” (Philippians 2:6–7).

We often read that as tragedy. Scripture presents it as obedience — but obedience fueled by love, not resignation.

There is something almost humorous about the contrast involved. The One who “upholds the universe by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3) learning to speak. The One before whom seraphim cover their faces now needing His face wiped clean. The Ancient of Days becoming temporally new.

This is not mockery. This is holy irony.

God outwits pride not by overpowering it, but by out-humbling it. He defeats the arrogance of fallen humanity by going lower than humanity expects God to go.

And I suspect — reverently — that the Trinity delighted in this plan.

Not delight in suffering, but delight in wisdom. Delight in love’s cleverness. Delight in the beauty of a strategy that would disarm evil without becoming evil.

“For what the law could not do… God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3).

The plan is audacious because it is joyful. Only a God secure in His goodness could afford to be this vulnerable.

The Risk God Took

Incarnation was not playacting.

Jesus did not pretend to be human. He did not simulate weakness. He truly entered it. Which means God voluntarily accepted misunderstanding, rejection, pain, hunger, exhaustion, and eventually death.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).

Sympathy requires experience.

The Son entrusted Himself not only to human biology, but to human parents. He placed Himself within history, culture, limitation, and time. The Infinite made Himself interruptible.

That is not only humility — it is affection.

God does not rescue us from afar. He rescues us from within.

And Christmas is not merely the beginning of salvation history. It is the revelation of God’s heart. A heart that would rather draw near than stay safe.

Joy That Is Not Sentimental

This is where Christmas often fails us.

We sentimentalize the incarnation instead of letting it confront us. We reduce it to softness when it is actually strength. We turn it into nostalgia when it is meant to rewire our understanding of God.

The angels did not say, “Be comforted.”
They said, “I bring you good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10).

Joy, in Scripture, is not emotional decoration. It is a force. It is the emotional signature of reality being set right. Joy erupts when God’s will breaks into the world.

And the incarnation is the greatest rupture of all.

The audacity of Christmas is not that God became small.
It’s that God enjoyed doing so.

“For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).

If joy sustained Him through death, joy was certainly present at His birth.

Reigniting First Love

The danger for believers is not heresy — it is familiarity.

We can affirm the incarnation while no longer being stunned by it. We can confess it weekly and never tremble. Never smile. Never feel our affection reawakened.

But first love is not reignited by obligation. It is reignited by wonder.

Christmas invites us back into that wonder — not as children who don’t understand, but as adults who finally do.

The incarnation tells us something decisive about God:
He is not reluctant to be with us.
He is not annoyed by our weakness.
He is not stoic toward our redemption.

He came gladly.

And if we allow ourselves to sit with that — not rush past it — something in us begins to soften. Gratitude deepens. Love warms. Worship becomes less dutiful and more honest.

This is not shallow joy. It is the joy of being wanted.

“And the Word became flesh… full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Grace that draws near. Truth that doesn’t withdraw.

That is the audacity of the incarnation.

And it is still smiling at us.