There is a deeply disturbing and shocking aspect to the event of the Incarnation. There is even what might be called a great “scandal” of the Incarnation.
Because – and this happened in the “fullness of time,” and that… the world has not known its God; found himself (except for a hundred odd “dark” people) blind to His God. In the face of its spiritual leaders, the world rejected and even killed its God. “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11)
We, of course, know what the main, essential reason for this “scandal” is. We know her because she is the one, the same, who is also the cornerstone of our faith… God appeared as a man, the Word became flesh, the Lord revealed Himself in the sight of a slave. The Messiah chose in this world not the “noble in the flesh”, not the exalted and not even the morally positive, but – fishermen, publicans, prostitutes and cripples.
Accustomed to this incredible paradox, we Christians have imperceptibly ceased to marvel at it to the appropriate degree, we have ceased to give ourselves a sufficiently clear account of what a “scandal” this was for the theological mind, what a scandal for traditional piety.
Perhaps due to this very forgetfulness, a flat-moralistic, essentially elementalizing and belittling “explanation” of the scandal in question has spread among some Christians in recent times. According to him, everything that happened was due to nothing else but the deep wickedness and lawlessness of the Israelites of that era. To prove this, said Christians ascribe to the “chosen people” all sorts of negative traits – starting with the humiliating low-worship through the splendor of Caesar’s Rome and ending with narrow-minded fanatical religiousness and ridiculous, pedantic legalism.
It should be added that this traditional, and, alas, flat understanding, has always been fueled by a side motive, but one that particularly helps its spread. The point is that by denigrating the Israelites from the time of Christ’s Incarnation on the basis of “historical data”, the interpreters quietly create the opportunity to establish themselves in the vain belief that even without being informed of the Calvary tragedy, they could have foreseen it. and if, by any chance, they themselves should be in the place of the wicked Jews, they would not allow it to happen at all.
What a pitiful dazzle though! These people forget that the great paradox of the Incarnation (at which even the angels marveled) has lost its “madness” for the descendants, only because these descendants have already lived in its light for two millennia and if today they themselves unmistakably know God in the Person of the man Jesus Christ, this is due, however, not to their discerning mind, but to the Holy Spirit, whom Christ Himself sent to the world after His Ascension. That is, it is essentially due to the condescension of God Himself.
And meanwhile, not someone else, but above all the learned Christian, should remember that the Son of God chose for His Incarnation on earth precisely the people of Israel, not at all because they – as they say – were the most vicious people in the world, and because – as is well known – he was the people that God Himself had created from the time when He revealed His secret name to him. “He came to His own – it is said in the Gospel – and His own did not receive Him(John 1:11) In this sense, it would be true to say rather the opposite: Israel, at the time of the Visitation of God, was just as wicked as any other nation at any other time, but the Lord chose it. not because of that in which it was similar to any other people, but – on the contrary – because of that in which it was distinguished and distinguished in a positive sense from all others. And we know how Israel was distinguished from others in this sense. He was distinguished by the fact that he knew God.
And there it is, therefore, the paradox of the Incarnation. Because not because Israel was the most vicious among the nations, but even though he was the most enlightened among them – he did not recognize his God in Jesus Christ. And not because the Pharisees were the most divisive representatives of the people of Israel, but, on the contrary – although they were the most enlightened and the most pious – they inspired the surrender of their God to the Crucifixion.
I, of course, do not claim that Israel’s blindness to God in the Person of Jesus Christ was not a sin, and a most terrible, most shocking sin. I say, however, that the root of this most terrible sin does not lie at all in the shallow, moralistic soil of superficial exegetes. Nor do I say that the Pharisees were not guilty of something terrible and terrible forever, but I maintain, at the same time, that this terrible offense is not at all the elementary moral depravity of which they are lightly accused. And – to express myself perhaps excessively paradoxically – I claim, on the contrary – that the root of Pharisaic sin, the root of God-not-knowing and God-killing lies in the very Pharisaic knowledge of God, in the very Pharisaic piety before God.
But what did the Pharisees know? Didn’t they know – and it was undoubtedly true – that “the Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4)? Yes, they knew it, and it was precisely this that outraged them when they heard the One who worked miracles among them, taking to Himself the hidden name of God (John 8:58) and making Himself, as it were, “one God.” Did they know—and this too was unquestionably true—that God is absolutely transcendent and uncontainable by this world. Yes, they knew it, and it was this that made them declare as a dangerous madman the One Whose parents, sisters and brothers knew you and Who at the same time claimed to be “of God” (John 16:27). They knew – and this was undoubtedly true – that God is Holy.
Yes, I say, they knew it, and it was that which made them revolt when they saw the “self-proclaimed Messiah” favoring the most sinful and wretched people in Israel. It was not, therefore, that the Pharisees professed the one God, but that they thought they knew His oneness, that proved to be their tragic sin. Not that they recognized His absolute transcendence, but that they claimed to attain it, proved to be the cause of their blindness. And finally, not that they extolled God’s holiness, but that they thought they lived and judged according to it, turned out to be their fatal injustice.
In the tragedy of God-ignorance it was revealed, therefore, that even the loftiest and most perfect concepts of man could not grasp God, could not “fit in” His house-building, could not attain His holiness. Moreover, the tragedy that unfolded on Golgotha showed that precisely human concepts of the Divine essence became the reason for man not to know God in His appearance, that precisely human morality, human standards of holiness became a motive for man to oppose and turn away from God’s ways, to count His God among robbers and blasphemers.
In this sense, the event of the Incarnation does indeed have a fearful, terrifying aspect. It is a deafening lesson given to all ages – to the end of the world. The work of God that saves man is a work that radically debunks human claims before God. The Incarnation, so unexpected, so unsuspected in its mercy, is at the same time a revelation – an extreme and terrible revelation of the limits of the human mind in general, a revelation that the Truth is, in fact, quite different – so different, so infinitely different that it is every human expectation and concept of Her.
Something terrible and forever burdening the historical conscience was revealed after the tragedy of Calvary. It has been revealed that the world—even when it thinks with the loftiest notions of a transcendent and absolutely holy God, even when it follows the strictest and most enlightened piety—ultimately fails to contain God within itself.
And so, in the “fullness of time” God revealed Himself – revealed Himself unexpectedly to all concepts of Him, unexpectedly and beyond all human piety before Him. He revealed Himself – and with that very thing He revealed ourselves to ourselves, discovered our true position before Him – He discovered how far we are from Him, how blind we are to Him, how unworthy of Him we are. In this sense, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ was a Judgment – the deepest, most radical and eternal Judgment over the actual state of the world – both then and for all time.
And yet – what exactly, what actually in human concepts of God, was condemned with the Judgment of the Crucifixion? What was discovered and exposed in his saving tragedy?
Paradoxical as it may be, it was precisely that which prevented the world from accepting its salvation.
Because, by becoming incarnate, God truly surpassed all human ideas about Himself. Surpassed – however paradoxical it may be to say this – even the idea of Him as God – that is, a Being both in being and in value, absolutely beyond this world and its measures. God…became man, became one-natured to us, and precisely in this – paradoxically – revealed His transcendence in relation to all possible ideas of His Deity.
In essence, this is exactly what the unheard of “scandal” for the divine mind in the appearance of Jesus Christ consists of. But – in this and precisely in this at the same time – as it becomes clear – is all his consolation. Because – thinking of God consistently and rigorously as completely and simply removed, this world would inevitably have to come to the “pious” negation of the world, to the complete negation and condemnation of itself. And indeed, if God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, and if, on the other hand, this world is infinitely and insurmountably beyond this Truth, this Goodness, and this Beauty, if it neither can “contain” them in itself, nor can it partakes of them, then he, the world, is a perfect and eternal untruth, absolute and invincible evil, complete and irreparable ugliness – in general, pure negativity before the Face of God. In such a case, the only proper, the only pious attitude of this world towards the Most High, should be its perfect humiliation, its simple self-denial before God.
All this is so, and it has been achieved in specific ways by the sages of all nations and of all times. But here it is – precisely him, the undoubted, God denied in the miracle, in the paradox of His Incarnation. God accepted the vain nature of the world, became “His” history unable to accommodate the Truth, united essentially with the creature that is negated before His Own Righteousness.
In fact, with His “absurd” from any earthly point of view Incarnation, exalting himself above the world, he discovered that He – the one who is beyond all creation is beyond and of His own otherness in relation to it.
But with this, God discovered something even more unsuspected – he discovered that His beyond is not simply alienation from the sinful world, but beyond all concept, all expectation, all hope, infinite sacrificial Mercy.
