Last week I sat for some time facing the Atlantic Ocean during a frigid, windy morning. My ears were filled with the crackling of dry plants behind me, the crashing of white-topped waves and the gentle howling of the wind. I was cold.
The sunlight glistened over the ocean water creating a beautiful path joining the shore to the horizon which lay before me uninterrupted except for a cargo ship departing from the port of Savannah. The horizon stretched out in a perfect line, delineating the limits of my vision while at the same time challenging me since all that lay beyond the horizon remained a mystery.
In the horizon two untouchables touch: ocean and sky. An abyss closes in so two which are opposite unite in one perfect line. How can it be that earth and sky join in and draw me into that mystery with an inviting glistening path?
As a seemingly unbridgeable abyss unites in the horizon, the Church rejoices during the Christmas season that Jesus has closed the abyss between God and humanity. Jesus Christ is the horizon where humanity and divinity unite. His two natures, human and divine, undergo no confusion, no change, no division, and no separation. As in the horizon, in Jesus Christ two untouchables touch.
This mystery of the incarnation is an earth-shattering event to which none of us can remain indifferent. It is the moment of history which the prophets foretold. It is the moment of history where the divine intersects the natural: God and man intersect in Jesus Christ.
The good news we celebrate is that our God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, has become one like us in all things but sin. God has come to reveal himself to us, to tell us about Himself and to bring us salvation, the forgiveness of our sins. God has come to the Earth and has shown us his glory, he has conquered death so that we may have eternal life. He has conquered the darkness so we many live in the light forever.
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