{"id":38649,"date":"2018-12-25T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=38649"},"modified":"2018-12-23T17:18:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T22:18:59","slug":"love-caused-your-incarnation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/12\/love-caused-your-incarnation\/","title":{"rendered":"“Love Caused Your Incarnation”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We hear Christmas songs during Advent, so here is an Advent Song for Christmas:\u00a0\u00a0O Lord, How Shall I Meet You<\/a>
\n<\/b>by the unutterably great hymn writer Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676).\u00a0 \u00a0My Christmas gift to you!<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t that familiar with this hymn, but our pastor started the practice of featuring a hymn, then having us sing it every Sunday for a number of successive weeks so that we make it our own.\u00a0 We sang this one every Sunday in Advent, but it also works magnificently as a Christmas hymn.<\/p>\n

\n

I was transfixed by the fourth stanza:<\/p>\n

Love caused your incarnation;
\nLove brought you down to me.
\nYour thirst for my salvation
\nProcured my liberty.
\nOh, love beyond all telling,
\nThat led you to embrace
\nIn love, all love excelling,
\nOur lost and fallen race.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why did God become incarnate in Jesus Christ?\u00a0 \u201cLove\u201d!\u00a0 Gerhardt goes so far as to say that Love \u201ccaused\u201d it!\u00a0 We aren\u2019t used to thinking that anything could \u201ccause\u201d God to do anything.\u00a0 And yet, \u201cGod so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son\u201d (John 3:16).<\/p>\n

Gerhardt is similarly bold and remarkably vivid in describing the intensity of this love from God\u2019s point of view:\u00a0 \u201cYour thirst for my salvation.\u201d\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just that we can<\/em> be saved, that God allows for it.\u00a0 Rather, God wants us<\/em> to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4).\u00a0 He yearns for us to be saved.\u00a0 He thirsts for our salvation.<\/p>\n

In another vivid image, Gerhardt describes God not just grudgingly accepting but actively\u00a0embracing<\/em>\u00a0\u201cour lost and fallen race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, the music, by\u00a0Johann Cr\u00fcger (1598-1662),\u00a0is achingly beautiful.\u00a0 Listen to it, from a wonderful recording of Lutheran hymnody from Concordia Publishing House<\/a>:<\/p>\n