For thousands of years, God gave us his voice. Prior to Bethlehem, he gave us his messengers, his teachers, his words. But in the manger, God gave us himself.
Many people have trouble with such a teaching. Some teach that God is One who sends others—angels, prophets, books, but God is too holy to come to us himself. For God to touch the earth would be what is called a “shirk.” People who claim that God has touched the earth shirk God’s holiness. They make him gross; they blaspheme him.
Christianity, by contrast, celebrates God’s great descent. His nature does not trap him in heaven, but leads him to earth. In God’s great gospel, he not only sends, he becomes. He not only talks to us, he lives with us, as one of us.
