The Consummation of the Incarnation

Good Friday: not so much the manner of our Lord's violent death, but simply that He died. How do we make sense of it? Death, "the only guest who is certain at one time or another to find his way into every human dwelling”[1] has found his way into the house of the most unlikely of hosts: the Lord of life. Do all things lose meaning now that the Deathless One is Himself dead?

It is an extraordinary idea that God would choose to become part of space, part of time- that the Infinite would become finite and subject to the laws of His creation. That is why the incarnation, when the Lord became flesh- became tangible to man's senses- is the most noteworthy event in history. The divine Person Christ willingly opened Himself up to whatever we as humans experience: our joys, our sufferings, our strengths, our weaknesses, the monotony of everyday living. However, in the death of Jesus we see Him experience something that He had not until then encountered, and indeed could only encounter in dying: He came face-to-face with the root of all human fear, the loneliness of death- "a night into whose solitude no voice reaches; a door through which we can only walk alone- the door of death."[2]

Every instinctive fear we mortals have can be avoided as long as it is a particular sort of fear. For instance, if one is afraid of dogs then one can keep at a distance from them; if one fears heights then one can stay close to the ground; if one fears public speaking then one can keep quiet. But, regardless of one admitting it, loneliness seems to be the greatest fear in every human heart and a fear that cannot be so easily avoided. Yet, this is to be expected, for we were never created to be an independent ‘I’ in a world of others, but to be an ‘I’ who is dependent on and in communion with others. In the language of Martin Buber, we are oriented to be a ‘Thou’ as well as an ‘I’.[3] 

Thus, when death comes along, it drives a wedge, a forced barrier between the one dying and the rest of humanity (that is, the humanity that the dying person was created for union with). Death can even threaten to impose a disconnect between the one dying and the Author of life Himself. So when Christ calls out moments before His death, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" (Mk 15:34), it is not merely a call for us to look to Psalm 22 and see in the suffering of Christ the fulfillment of all that is contained in that excruciating plea of David- it is also an invitation for us to look into the innermost turmoil of the perfect Man dying.

Being lifted up from the earth- hanging on the cross- caught between a world that rebuked Him from below and a God who had seemingly abandoned Him from above, Jesus was in the deepest pit of loneliness. Because of this, one might reasonably ask: Why do we call this day "good" in which the experience of the Christ’s utter desolation is recalled?

It is for no other reason than this is the completion of the incarnation, the final consummation of the divine plan in the Lord becoming man! The Son has at last encountered the deepest recess of the human heart and remains there in His dying. Along with the Roman playwright Terence, Christ can now truthfully say: "I am man, I consider nothing human alien to me,"[4] not even death itself. Only now can we understand why the letter to the Hebrews says that He was like unto us in all ways except sin (c.f. Heb 4:15). We, as human beings undoubtedly destined to go through death no matter how much we fight or ignore it, do not have to walk through that threshold alone, because "in His passion He went down into the abyss of our abandonment, where no voice can reach us any longer, there He is!"[5] 

That is why this day is called "Good Friday". There is no place nor event, in life- nor even in death- where we cannot be in the presence of our God who has beat us to the grave. Rather, it is in dying that we are closest to Him.

[1] Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1967), 16.

[2] Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J.R. Foster (San Franscico, CA: Ignatius Press, 2004), 301. Credit is to be given for parts of this reflection to remarks on pages 293-301 of this work regarding Christ’s descent into hell.

[3] c.f. Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (Mansfield, CT: Martino Publishing, 2014), 40-58.

[4] c.f. Terence, The Self-Tormentor.

[5] Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 301.