In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1–4 ESV)
Every person has been created to live in community. In this way, we reflect our Creator, who resides in perpetual and continuous communion with himself—Father, Son, and Spirit. He also desires to live in communion with us, but due to our sin, failings, and limitations it wasn’t until “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” that the door was opened for us to come to know Him in all his fullness, through Christ (John 1:14).
This was a big reason for the Incarnation. Jesus didn’t come to earth only to die on the cross and defeat death through resurrection. Even adding in His three-year teaching and healing ministry to His death and resurrection doesn’t encapsulate the full purpose of His life among us. As Scot McKnight puts it in The King Jesus Gospel, the Incarnation, the story of Jesus, “is the narrative of his birth, his life and teachings, his miracles and actions, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and his ascension and exaltation.” Jesus lived, slept, ate, worked, and walked among us because He wanted to build relationship with us, and He couldn’t do that when there was a distance between Him and us.
To bridge the gap created by distances between ourselves and our neighbors, family members, and friends, we too must leave the safety and comfort of our homes behind as we, like Jesus, make our way into the wider, dusty world to befriend tax collectors, Samaritan women, and the leprous and unclean. Consider what this would look life if you embraced such an incarnational life.