The Secret

            The candle flickered. In its ignored spot there had coagulated a pool of wax, slowly branching out. Hunched over the simplest of wooden tables, near the candle’s pool, was an elderly man; elderly, but far from senile. His back was broad and muscular, his arms and legs strikingly thick and intimidating. He was writing furiously, utterly oblivious to the rest of the world, the rest of the room. He would mutter unintelligible sounds as he wrote. And after a while, he would get quiet. He would sit still, ceasing to breathe, the room ceasing to be. Until all of a sudden a frightening explosion would reawaken the dark spotlight. He would crumple up his paper in disgust, tossing it across the expanse, and begin again.

            Like a mathematician unable to make an equation balance, the elder man suffered through this heart-rending paradox, desperately searching for a way across the chasm he found himself up against. His logic was in vain. The forces of the universe were clearly fixed. The laws of existence would not alter their preset code, not for anyone, not even him. His anger never rose past a certain level; it was never out of control or disproportionate to the grace he emitted. The room seemed to hold its breath as it watched him struggle.

            An answer would not reveal itself, simply because the answer was already known. But the man could not accept that one. Thus, he spent hours upon hours in that grueling position, scribbling messy thoughts, continually bested. Piles upon piles of crumpled paper accumulated on the floor. He would not acknowledge what he knew as truth. His heart would not allow it.

            That is until finally, the last piece of parchment exhausted, the man lifted his head and sat back in his chair, silent and defeated. There was a wave of sadness pouring from his eyes, the most beautiful eyes the world had ever known. They were uncreated eyes. Life seemed to halt in this moment as the man unwillingly came to grips with the situation. He stared off into the distance, the brown of the walls his uncured landscape.

            “It’s the only way,” he whispered to himself, to the room, to the universe still and dark.

“It’s the only way.”

Over and over he recited this wounding phrase, letting it douse every hope or happiness. Then without warning, the man thunderously slunk from his chair and collapsed into a heap of clashing color upon the floor, shrieking sounds no one had ever heard. They were the cries of anguish unknown.

            “It’s the only way!” he cried into the floor. “It’s the only way!” Over and over, he spit these words out. “It’s the only way!” The room wept with him. His lament went on for days or years, time neither stopped nor started.

Pain must have its moment of triumph. It must be drunk to the very last drop. But then once finished, life resumes. And after the last drop fell onto his lips, the tears slowed. The man sat up and in those overwhelming eyes, there now shone a courageous love, a fiery composure, dignity, grace and untamed power. The man nodded his head slowly, knowing what was to be done.

            “I must tell him. He must know.”

            He arose from the floor and walked toward the door, putting into motion the plan of darkest night. It was as though he was walking toward his executioner. He reached the door and opened it, but not to his surprise, there waiting on the other side was another man, a younger copy. He was just as beautiful and untamed with the same passionately wild eyes. There was a warm smile on the young son’s face and his eyes, like his father’s, were freshly wet. No sooner had the father seen his son than he collapsed again upon the floor. His son reacting fell to the floor with him and the two cradled each other weeping and rocking, subjecting themselves to a pain which they should never have had to endure…but were.

            The younger son kept repeating to his father, “I know Father, I know.”

            “It’s the only way,” the Father stammered.

            “I know Father,” the son replied. “I see it. But I’ll go, for I want them too.”

            The two held each other for eternity, understanding what was about to occur, for it truly was the only way. Both were accepting the price that was only theirs to pay; all because of love—for each other, for their creation, for their family. 

            I do not know when this moment occurred but I am convinced it did. Perhaps before God ever created; perhaps the night Jesus was born; perhaps as he hung on the cross; perhaps in all three. No other religion, no mythology, no philosophy, no man or woman or child, nothing else in the history of our world can claim what this Great Story claims: that God became one like his created man in order to save them, in order to restore his family.

The God of the Bible stands alone in this. Even if it is all fiction, the Incarnation is the most mind-boggling plot twist ever dreamt up, and nothing else has come even remotely close to paralleling it.

Call it love, call it madness, call it a lie. But if it is a lie, it is an impossible lie; a lie the universe never could have entertained as plausible. But if it is true, silent faces in the dust is the only response…for how can you respond to this obliterating fact, this new chapter in the Story?

God forfeited his God-like glory to achieve that which we could not achieve on our own. God gave up his perfection and peace even though he absolutely did not have to. And he did it all because he loved us before he created us. He did it all because he loved us while we were still his enemies, while we knew nothing about him, while we still despised his interference in our lives. He did it all. He has always been doing it all.

            “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”

            This is the mystery of the Great Story. Israel claimed that their God, the one and only living God, was doing new and crazy things. But I wonder if they even imagined, in their wildest dreams, that God would actually do this, that he would show up onto the scene, as one of them. Maybe their God would send someone to save them, but that someone would be a powerful king, certainly not himself.

And as a helpless infant, born to a virgin…unthinkable.

It is absolutely mad…and it is so absolutely beautiful.

Our Father of the now has through history been steadily revealing himself to humanity, for every soul taken together is like his child. And in this chapter, the uncontained God contained himself so that he could be known by all of his creation, and fully. He had revealed portions of truth to prophets who spoke within their time and according to their own limited skill, a message of hope and judgment. ‘God is for us!’ they cried. ‘Turn to him. Repent my brothers! He loves you so much. He has bound himself to us and his wells of living water are never dry.’

We will never know, but I truly wonder, if as Isaiah wrote his ludicrous words, ‘A virgin will conceive and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel,’ he knew what he was actually writing? I wonder if he knew who this Immanuel would in fact be?

Not just God with man but God become man.

This is the secret that God has always known.

This is the climax the Author always planned.

The Father and his Son, who created the world, always knew that this would be the pinnacle of the Great Story, that this would be the only way they could have a completely restored family. But we did not know that.

Our Father did not tell humanity everything…until Jesus. And taking on flesh, he decided to come down and tell us himself.

God is with us, again. God did something so ridiculous, so absurd it is beyond words, because no human words could have ever thought it up. His love for his creation is stronger than any human’s conceptions of the highest form of beauty, of the greatest and mightiest truth. God is beyond it all. God is better than it all. The Incarnation proves that.