An excerpt from the essay "The Suffering God and the Culture of Death," published in volume 2, issue 2 of The Christendom Review in 2010, an essay now included in Andy Nowicki's 2015 book Notes Before Death: Three Essays.
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| What are the full ramifications of the notion of God suffering as a man? |
by Andy Nowicki
How to begin to describe the ramifications of this strange and moving idea (the Incarnation), which is the essence of the Christian faith? One is at a loss, because the profundity of the concept is beyond all words, and this is ironic, since it is all about a “Word” (in Greek, “Logos”) allegedly “made flesh.”
What does it say about the human race that God would consent to take human form? What does it say about human suffering that God became man in order to suffer the humiliation and grief, the mental and physical pain, the ignoble punishment of a common criminal, being flogged, stripped, and nailed to a cross to die?
Let us consider the full implications of the Incarnation in Christian theology.
