To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?…
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Isaiah 40:18, 21–23
In a way that is beyond understanding, God does something that goes against all ideas of justice and religious thinking: He declares Himself guilty before the world to take away the world’s guilt. God takes the humbling path of reconciliation, setting the world free. He chooses to take responsibility for our guilt and bears the punishment and suffering that our guilt caused.
God takes the place of godlessness; love takes the place of hate; the Holy One takes the place of the sinner. Now, there is no godlessness, no hate, and no sin that God has not taken upon Himself, suffered for, and made right. There is now no reality or part of the world that is not reconciled with God and at peace. This is what God has done through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Ecce homo—“Behold the man”—look at God in human form. This is the incredible mystery of God’s love for the world. God loves people—not perfect people but real people as they are. God loves the world—not a perfect world but the real, broken world.
We prepare to witness a mystery. More to the point, we prepare to witness the Mystery, the God made flesh. While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task, to suppose that we ever know anything about him except what he has made known to us. The prophet Isaiah helps us to remember our limitations when he writes, “To whom then will you compare me …? says the Holy One.…” Think of it like this: he cannot be exhausted by our ideas about him, but he is everywhere suggested. He cannot be comprehended, but he can be touched. His coming in the flesh—this Mystery we prepare to glimpse again—confirms that he is to be touched.
Scott Cairns, in God with Us
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. God Is in the Manger : Reflections on Advent and Christmas. Louisville, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 2012.
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