After the Incarnation
Looking past the holidays at the new year and beyond
On Christmas morning, while our family unwraps presents, I usually embody this meme about dads who love to pick up the wrapping paper while holding a garbage bag. After that, we do brunch. Then family comes over. Then more presents. More food. Then, finally, Christmas day is over. After the last family member or friend has gone home, the cleanup can take as long as the setup—or as long as the celebration.
Then comes focus on the rest of life.
Focusing on the new year. On going back to school. Back to work. For our family, it also means focusing on our third-born son, who had the unfortunate luck to be born on December 26th. (“This is your Christmas present and your birthday present!”) Transitioning from holidays to real life can be a jarring one.
In older church traditions, it wasn’t like this. Christmas day was not an end but a beginning—the first of twelve days of Christmas, culminating in the feast of Epiphany. That’s not how I grew up. I grew up disappointed every Christmas afternoon, right around 5pm. Then, it’d be back to the same ol’ routine. Ugh. December 26th might as well be March 26th.
I think the main question here is, “What did Christmas really change?” If on Christmas we celebrate the coming of the Son of God, what difference did it make for the rest of the year?
In his book On the Incarnation, written some 1700 years ago, St. Athanasius reflects on this very question. Turns out, Christmas made all the difference in the world. In one passage, Athanasius states that the entire value, worth, and honor of our world has changed, since we’ve been visited by the Son of God:
As when a great king has entered some large city and made his dwelling in one of the houses in it, such a city is certainly made worthy of high honor, and no longer does any enemy or bandit descend upon it, but it is rather reckoned worthy of all care because of the king’s having taken residence in one of its houses; so also does it happen with the King of all. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation)
Imagine the President called and wanted to come hang out at your house. What would happen next? After the shock wears off, and you agree to his invitation, you’d get right to work cleaning and making the house ready. Beds would be made, carpets shampooed, chips in paint covered, lawn mowed. You’d shop for the best food, lay out the best china, and create the bombest playlist you possibly could.
All to make your home the kind of environment that befits such a person of honor.
In the same way, God sent his Son—the “King of all” in Athanasius’s language—into our world. Not just to visit, but to “dwell among us” (Jn. 1:14). To breathe our air, eat our food, feel the stab of our pain, and cry with our tears. Later, he died our death and was raised to life for our own resurrection.
In sending his Son—an event we anticipate every Advent and celebrate every Christmas—God made our world “worthy of high honor” and “worthy of all care.” The King has taken residence.
The beauty of the gospel is that you are also worthy of honor and care. Not because you’re amazing or deserve it, but because God has deemed you worthy by his grace (see Deut. 7:7–8). This is true on December 26th, and January 1st. Heck, even March 26th! Every day of the year, because the residence of the Son of God didn’t stop on Christmas, or even on Easter. It continues to this day. Remember what Jesus promised right before his ascension:
“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt. 28:20)
As we shift our focus back to real life, I pray that we would do so while deeply saturated in the presence of God. May we look toward 2024 with a vision from the Holy Spirit. May we return—to school, work, routine—while enthusiastically loyal to King Jesus.
He is with us.
Today. Always.
