He Took to Himself a Body
. . . He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body. . . He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt. (Athanasius, On the Incarnation: De Incarnatione Verbi Dei)
I read these words, days ago, just more words in a long line of words.
I’m all day reading.
Policy contracts, settlement demands, repair estimates, police reports, legal opinions. A long line of words that snake through burning eyes and I suspect just slip out the exit at the back of my head.
But these words, they wove their way in and wound themselves up onto a vacant spool and stayed. These words, penned a millennium and a few centuries ago, stay with me for days.
Athanasius takes me a few readings. He doesn’t write like me or speak like me. He surely doesn’t think like me. I have to come around again and again for it to make its mark.
But these words here, they’ve done it.
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He took to Himself a body.
John wrote that the Word became flesh and dwelt for a while among us. He wasn’t squeezed into flesh as passive objects are packed into crates. And He did not with indifference pick flesh from the closet like a jacket and slip the shell over His disinterested shoulders. He was not sedated and put into this restrictive garb without His consent.
He became flesh.
And He embodied it. And it was His choice.
This Word, the One who was with God and was God and was in the beginning before it had a beginning (get used to that, I’m going to be saying it a lot) — this Word created all things.
Including the very flesh in which He would dwell among us.
Listen to Athanasius: He prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself.
His own hands formed the body in which He would dwell.
He selected the color of eyes that would gaze out from a bed of straw to meet with those of onlooking shepherds. Did He also choose hair color that would look like it came from Joseph? Did He craft Himself a sturdy frame, shoulders that would grow strong, knowing the burden that would be laid across them? The stature He designed, would He grow to tower over His mother or look His father in the eye? What did He think as He imagined Himself a complexion and sculpted the shape of His very own nose?
He prepared this body, He designed a temple that was beyond the scope of the human eye, and by God’s spirit nestled it in the womb of a teenage virgin. There He inhabited it as His dwelling.
It was not His fate. It was not pressed upon Him by external forces.
He chose, and He designed, and He crafted.
And then He dwelt in it, among us, for a while.
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I’ve got incarnation on my mind. I plan to for a while. You can see more of that here.
Photo: Piano keys with help by Robert Walker
“He chose, and He designed, and He crafted.”
This reminder (one that I needed) that everything is designed by Him, created by Him including when it comes down to creating Himself a body like ours.
Why is it that I never thought of it this way before? I take for granted that that is the way it is and move on to the next thing. But to actually sit and think on it and ponder exactly what it means gives me chills.
I love to listen to your perspective on things…they make me look at things so differently.
I so appreciate you.
Blessings to you!
2011/01/14 at 2:38 PM
That verse, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it always gets me. The Word that spoke and created the universe and all it contains – became flesh. Your perspective always paints such a vivid picture for me – He spoke and created the very temple of His dwelling. Thanks!
2011/01/14 at 5:03 PM
I have never thought of Him crafting His own body. I always imagined that He had some of Mary’s characteristics, but this crafting of His own body. I think these words will have to “stew” a while in my little brain.
The thing that takes my breath away is His willingness to be forever changed: Son of Man and Son of God. Always a part of us for all eternity.
2011/01/14 at 8:22 PM
Julie and Nancy, thank you. And Linda, yes. In some truly miraculous way, the “unchanging” was changed. He returned home with, I believe you’ve said before, scars. That will have me stewing all day. Than you for that.
2011/01/15 at 10:48 AM
Breathtaking
2011/01/15 at 2:46 PM
And then at the exact time of the sacrifice, He chose to leave that crafted vessel. Shaking my head in amazement.
2011/01/16 at 8:04 PM
play that song as often as you like
2011/01/16 at 9:05 PM
Oh my.
This is going to be good. It already is. I love watching how you plumb the depths of God’s Word, like a Scuba Scholar in a Scripture Sea. I feel as though I’m just here on the shore, toes barely dipping in. You help me step in further.
2011/01/17 at 4:49 PM
You’ve brought so much to life with the way you have placed your words on that spool. Thank you.
2011/01/17 at 6:35 PM
These words are all tangled up in my head now. And that’s a good thing.
2011/01/23 at 9:38 AM