The Nativity of the Lord
Why the Incarnation?
C. S. Lewis wrote, “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this” (Miracles). Christ put on our nature so that we can put on his. The first happens at the Incarnation, the second happens as a result of the Resurrection. “The babe in swaddling clothes comes with a mission to fulfill,” Lewis says. “[A]s we sing carols for his birth, we see him taken down from the cross, wrapped in ‘a clean linen cloth,’ and laid in the tomb of a friend. That’s the cloth that is left behind in the empty tomb on Resurrection morning.” Swaddling clothes and burial cloths are both used to wrap a person in cloth, and both are mentioned in the story of Jesus.
The Latin Church Father Tertullian (c. 155 – 220) left us with a comprehensive scriptural reflections on these strange realities, the corporeality of Christ’s real human body and resurrection, in the treatises De carne Christi (On the Flesh of Christ) and De resurrectione mortuorum (On the Resurrection of the Dead). Scattered throughout those dense theological treatises are moments of calm meditation on the mysteries of the Incarnation, Christ’s resurrection, and our own eventual resurrection at the end of ages as a result of Christ’s own death and resurrection.
In De Carne Christi, Tertullian pays particular attention to the Nativity and thus the Incarnation. Tertullian’s attention to the reality of Christ’s Nativity and Incarnation prove that God did not only pretend to be human. The Incarnation was not a myth, lie, or any otherwise deceptive thing. Additionally, the Incarnation is not a break from previous means of revelation, but rather, Christ’s true flesh is a recapitulation of the whole economy of salvation, divine love, and providence. If you reject Christ’s Nativity (i.e. the doctrine of the Incarnation), a reality clearly indicated by Scripture and Tradition, then you reject the literal, incarnate, and historical meaning of Christ’s whole life, as well as his death and resurrection—and all of the other mysteries of the Christian faith for that matter.
If Christ was not truly born of the Virgin Mary, then he did not truly take on human flesh nor did he shed his blood for the salvation of all of humanity. Plus, if we reject the Virgin Birth then creation is not in fact governed by benevolent providence and in the end love does not rule all things, death ultimately triumphs over life. And because of his willingness to invest human flesh with a deeper meaning by being born and taking it up for himself, God also shows that the flesh is inherently good and dignified. And through his death on the Cross—a most foolish act according to the wisdom of the world—and his resurrection, God shows that all human flesh is certainly worthy of resurrection and capable of inheriting eternal life.
So why then did Christ become man? Tertullian says that “man’s salvation was the motive, the restoration of that which had perished” (Carn. Chr. 14). There is something vaguely ecclesiological and explicitly eschatological about that statement. Tertullian seems to be hinting at how Christ did not just fall out of the sky and fix everything wrong in the world, but belief that the bodily resurrection will occur all at once for every person at the end of time and that we will be eternally united with him, providing that we live with faith in and hope for his promises and always strive to grow in love and to turn away from sin.
De resurrectione mortuorum, building on Tertullian’s forceful upholding of the doctrine of the Incarnation in De carne Christi, demonstrates the coherence of the Christian narrative through a potent argument for the resurrection of the flesh as a direct result of Christ’s own resurrection. Tertullian argues that the resurrection of the dead, properly understood, comes from God’s inherent goodness and love for all of creation. There was no reason that he should empty himself, taking on human flesh, save that he wished to learn our sufferings so that we, as the universal Church espoused to him by his blood, might learn to attain complete eternal union with him in thanksgiving and in imitation of his love.
http://www.churchlifejournal.nd,edu. Irina Celentano. “Easter Sunday: That Flesh on Which Salvation Hinges.” 31 March 2018.
Nature and dignity 