One of Us

A unique joy of human experience happens when one from humble origins is elevated to great heights.  For the individual who attains such acclaim, his joy is often surmounted by that of those from whom he came.  Such an experience is visible when a TV broadcast displays a live look-in at a bar in some obscure town in Minnesota or Nevada during the Olympic games.  As an Olympic athlete is swimming, skiing, or skating, his family and friends from his hometown will be featured as they cheer and cry tears of joy at the sight of their athlete being raised to glory.  “He used to mow my lawn!” one might shout, pointing emphatically at the TV screen.  “He’s one of us!”.

Relating to one who is glorified is a special feeling.  You share in that person's success, whether because you’re his parent, teacher, mechanic, or simply because you’re from the same zip code.  You share something with this hero that others do not, you take great pride in knowing that he is “one of us”, that he is from the same humble origins as you are, and that his ascent means more to you than it does for the average person.

Yet the feeling of “one of us” can be stirred in a different direction; indeed, it is for us Christians.  When the Incarnation happened, the God who is all things came down and became “one of us”.  In an act of supreme humility, the Creator became the creature; the infinite Being took on our nature.  “For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man.  He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice, and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin” (Gaudium et Spes 22).  God became man, living as a man lives, acting as a man acts in all things but sin.  

The Incarnation is unfathomable to every other major world religion.  The idea that the Divine would condescend to be one with man-  this truth is at best absurd and at worst a great blasphemy to many ears.  Yet it is the truth, and a blessed truth indeed.  It’s a truth worth meditating on during the Sacred Triduum, as the Good Friday liturgy provides us with the stunning reminder that a Man, a man like us, underwent the most brutal and painful of physical torture imaginable so that we might be reconciled to the Father.  We shudder as we imagine the torment of His body as it was scourged, the agony of His shoulders as they bore the heavy cross, the screaming of the nerves in His hands and feet as cold iron nails penetrated them.  We can see these terrors with raw clarity, as we can imagine them happening to our bodies.  In this, we see one of us suffering, suffering for us, suffering with us as we suffer.  This is the Christ we adore, the one who became one of us so that we might become one with Him.

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God,
Have mercy on me,
A sinner.