A Mystery

At the right time, God sent his Son, and the Word who is from the beginning came into our history. The Word who was with God became God with us.

According to God’s plan, as the centerpiece of history, God the Son emptied himself. The One who created thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, and who upholds them all by his powerful word, humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant. God-with-God and God-equal-with-God made himself nothing by adding rather than taking away. The Creator took on the likeness of his creatures.

For our salvation the omnipotent One became weak, and the self-existent One became subject to death. To make us rich, the heir of all things became poor. To destroy the one who has the power of death, the radiance of the Father’s glory veiled himself in humanity so he could die.

And in the mysterious wisdom of God, it is by the veiling of his glory that the Son displayed God’s glory to us. “No one,” God told Moses, “can see me and live,” but in the Son, the image of the invisible God, we can see the unseen One. In Jesus, who came from the Father’s side to show us God’s glory, we see “all God’s goodness pass before us.” We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the mystery of God’s will, for our sake, the exalted Son chose to make himself nothing and be born as one of us. The one for whom and by whom all things exist came to die to free us from the fear of dying. The Lord-of-all was born as Mary’s little son, bringing us salvation.