Variety: John 1v14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

In 1963, C.S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled ‘The Seeing Eye’. It was a response to Nikita Krushchev, the Russian politician who famously declared of the first man in space, ‘Gagarin flew into space but didn’t see God there’.

Krushchev considered the fact that God wasn’t spotted up there to be proof of his non-existence. And Lewis was having none of it. By way of response, he wrote:

‘Looking for God – or Heaven – by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places.

‘Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth…

‘My point is that, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play than as one object in the universe is related to another.

‘If God created the universe, He created space-time, which is to the universe as the metre is to a poem or the key is to music. To look for Him as one item within the framework which He Himself invented is nonsensical.’

Now, let’s move a step further. Say Shakespeare wanted to let Lady Macbeth know that he’s the author of her entire reality – that he created her, and everything around her. How might he do that? How might he introduce himself to Lady Macbeth in a tangible way? Well, he’d have to write himself into the play.

The (pretty outrageous) Christmas claim is that that’s exactly what God did. The playwright took the stage, the author hopped onto the page, the architect inhabited his own plans. And in so doing, he bound together centuries of prophecies, predictions, expectations, and hopes.

I believe that the ‘incarnation’, the playwright hopping into the stage, actually happened. But even if I didn’t think that the story was true, I’d think it was big, strange, and beautiful. And I’d be curious why it touches upon my deepest yearnings, why it makes my soul feel its worth.

This Advent season – whatever it holds for us and wherever we find ourselves – let’s not shy away from speaking of just how big, strange, and beautiful it is.

Belle Tindall-Riley