Love Wrapped in Weakness

In Jesus, God achieved the perfect synthesis of the divine and the human.

The incarnation of Jesus demonstrates that God meets us where we are as hu-mans. God freely and fully overcomes the gap from God's side. The problem of redemption is already resolved, once and for all, long before its dramatic illustration on the cross. Bethlehem already revealed that it was good to be a human being.

For the Christian, spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness, just as God was hidden and yet revealed in a defenseless baby. If God is ever to be loved and shared, God had to risk both human embodiment and human vulnerability. This is the only thing that enchants and evokes the human heart. We do not properly fall in love with concepts or theological ideas, though some do try; persons fall in love with other persons.

In a weak little child, God is both perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed—and fully loveable.

—Richard Rohr