Three Minute Theology 1.7: And Speaking of the Incarnation

When I was in High School I spent three months studying French in the province of Quebec.  About two months in, we went skiing for a weekend. 

The following Monday, my legs were sore from all that exercise, so I when I came down for breakfast, I complained to my host family: “Mes jambons font mal!”

The room promptly erupted into laughter.  In French, the word “jambon” means “ham,” and the word “jambe” means “leg.”  I had meant to say, “My legs hurt,” but I had accidentally said, “My hams hurt!”

It was a humbling moment for me, one that reminded me of my limitations as an English speaker trying to learn French.   But it also provides us with a helpful way of thinking about the incarnation, and how Jesus could have been both fully God and fully human, two natures in one person.

After all, the supernatural signs and wonders he did notwithstanding, when that first century Jewish Holy Man walked this earth, the people who saw him and interacted with him saw and interacted with a human being.  A man unlike any man they had ever known before, but still, for all that, a man.

In what way was this man also God incarnate?

Theologians sometimes use the word kenosis to describe this paradox.  “Kenosis” is a Greek word that means “emptying,” and it comes from Philippians 2:7, where Paul says, “Jesus was in his very nature, God, but he did not see his equality with God as something to be exploited, rather, he ‘emptied himself’ ... being made in human likeness.”

The idea here is that in some sense, the Son of God necessarily “emptied himself” in some way related to his being God, when he became a human being.

But how?  If he emptied himself of his divine nature, wouldn’t he have ceased to be truly God?  In what way could we then say that he revealed God to us?

And here is where my sore hams come in. 

When I chose to travel to Quebec, I knew that this would mean having certain limitations placed on me, as an English speaker among French speakers. 

To be sure, there would be some overlap—in both English and French I would use vocalized sounds to communicate meaning, for instance; and throughout my time there, I could draw on my “nature” as an English speaker, to various degrees in various ways, depending on my circumstances. 

Sometimes I might even speak in English, revealing myself to be an Anglophone (although when I did, it’s unlikely my francophone friends would grasp my meaning).  But so long as I was required to speak French, there would be certain, unavoidable limitations on my ability to express myself and communicate.

At the same time, however, no matter how clunky my French might have been, I never ceased to be an English speaker, with sophisticated thoughts that I could fluently express in English.  It’s just that, in accepting the limitations of a “French nature” I was also choosing to set aside the use of my “English nature,” even though I still retained it and could have used it if I had wished.

So too with the incarnation: in taking on our human nature, the Son of God did not empty himself of his divinity; rather he willingly accepted the limitations of our human nature, choosing not to draw on his divine nature, except in keeping with the Father’s will and the Spirit’s leading. 

These limitations were real—he got hungry and tired and rested and ate—he grew and matured as a child.   He bled.

But that doesn’t mean he ceased to be fully God, rather, just like English and French “natures” can exist without contradiction in the same person, his human and divine natures were one in himself. 

And sometimes, of course, we actually see him speaking “English” to his francophone friends, so to speak: revealing his divine nature among them.  Like the disciples said it when they saw him walk out over the water to their wave-tossed boat: Surely this man is the Son of God.