What Are You Looking For? Part 1: The Nicene Creed

And By the Power of the Holy Spirit Was Incarnate

And by the power of the Holy Spirit was incarnate…

            In most of my posts up to now, I have referred to Jesus as the Son.  There was a reason for that.  Up until now, we have been focusing on the Son of God, in his role as the second person of the Most Holy Trinity.  We’ve focused on his divinity and how he interacted in the Old Testament world.  But something amazing happened.  At a specific date in time, the Son of God became the Son of Man.  As St. John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14 NABRE)  This singular event was so important to human history that it became the dividing line for all of time.  Whether you prefer to use B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, In the Year of Our Lord) or BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) for the measurement of time, the dividing line is the same.  It happened one night in a stable in Bethlehem during the reign of Caesar Augustus. 

            Jesus didn’t become incarnate that night.  That happened nine months prior when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.  (Luke 1:35)  He became incarnate at the moment of conception.  Just like each of us, he began life as a single cell.  Then two cells.  Then four cells.  And so on.  The major difference, however, was that even then that small collection of cells contained fully his divine nature, as well as the genetic code for the human he would become.  Divinity stepped down from heaven into the womb of the Virgin to be born a man.  Why?

            “Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again.  We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us.  Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captive, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator.  Are these things minor or insignificant:  Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, [orat. Catech. 15: PG 45, 46B] CCC 457)

            The Son of God became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit to reconcile us.  Not to cover up our sin, but to wash it away.  To restore to us “the possession of the good” he was willing to do whatever it took including becoming incarnate.  Becoming one of us in all ways, except sin.