Restoring the City: Christmas and the Incarnation
This year for Advent, Christo et Doctrinae’s writers have explored Biblical cities and the ways in which they point us to Christ’s birth and work of salvation. From Nazareth to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, and ultimately to Zion, we have traced the Gospel not only through Jesus’ physical ministry on earth, but also through the symbolism and broader aspects of God’s nature revealed in these cities. Beyond these examples, though, there is yet another city—a symbolic one—to be found in the Christmas story. As Athanasius, a theologian of the early Christian church, writes, “For if a king, having founded a house or city, if it be beset by bandits from the carelessness of its inmates, does not by any means neglect it, but avenges it and reclaims it as his own work…; much more did God… not neglect the race of men, His work, going to corruption, but…blotted out the death which had ensued by the offering of His own body.” (17)
In Athanasius’ metaphor, we humans are like a city created by God. This city, however, has been “beset by bandits”—humanity is fallen and sinful, and to be restored from its fallen state, it needs the triumphant entry of its Creator and King. The Incarnation of Christ, then, as the central mystery of the Christmas story, is exactly that: God himself taking on flesh and coming to live in the city He has built, rectifying the “carelessness of its inmates” (that is, the Fall), and opening an avenue for the city to regain its original state of perfection. This triumphant entry of God into creation also echoes the ultimate return of Christ at the end of time, when he will usher in the new heavens and the new earth, merging Athanasius’ spiritually restored city within Christians’ souls with the future physical Zion, the New Jerusalem, where Christians will live forever.
God’s restoration of the “city” of humanity through the Incarnation also represents a renewing of the image of God in humans. Athanasius writes at another point that Christ’s birth as a human infant is like “when a king has entered into some large city…(S)uch a city is at all events held worthy of high honor, nor does any enemy…subject it” (16). He adds that Christ is like the “original” subject of a portrait (representing humanity) that has been marred by stains, but from which the portrait can be re-painted to show its original image (24). In this way, the Incarnation of Christ is not merely simple solution needed to save mankind from their sins, but something far greater: an entering of God himself into time and space so that the image of God in humans, once marred by the Fall, can now be repaired; a calling of mankind back to its former glory and honor, ennobled by God Himself becoming a man.
Indeed, the Incarnation—which sets the stage for Christ’s death—is part of the most fundamental re-alignment of history, one whose full significance should not be lost on us. Athanasius’ city metaphor, while powerful, may admittedly make this event seem too simple or easily comprehensible to us (a king inhabiting a city is certainly something we can imagine). In light of that, we should take care to reflect even further on the true paradox and wonder the comparison touches on: the infinite, omnipotent God has entered into finite creation as a man in order to redeem that creation—and everything changes as a result of that. While this event will never be fully understandable to our limited minds, we are nevertheless urged by Athanasius and other theologians, as well as Scripture itself, to meditate on it, and to give thanks for the love of God, revealed through the Incarnation of Christ in this Christmas season.
And from this day our world is re-aligned
A tiny seed unfolding in the womb
Becomes the source from which we all unfold
And flower into being. We are healed,
The end begins, the tomb becomes a womb,
For now in Him all things are re-aligned (Guite).
Athanasius. St. Athanasius: On the Incarnation. 1891. translated by Archibald Robertson, 2nd ed., London, D. Nutt: 270-271 Strand, ia600208.us.archive.org/2/items/stathanasiusonth00athauoft/stathanasiusonth00athauoft.pdf. Accessed 23 Dec. 2023.
Guite, Malcolm. “Christmas on the Edge.” Malcolm Guite, 23 Dec. 2011, malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/christmas-on-the-edge/. Accessed 23 Dec. 2023.