Far as the curse is found

“The Incarnation changes EVERYTHING!” the young, exuberant priest kept repeating at church on the sixth day of Christmas. Just like on Good Friday when he had similarly insisted that “Christ’s death changes EVERYTHING!” I initially accepted his statement casually while I waited for the meat of his sermon to follow. But in both cases, that was the meat, repeatedly announced with urgent, bewildered joy. And in both cases, the simple statement is profoundly true.

Just as the curse of the Fall has entwined itself into the very veins of Creation, so the Incarnation reaches just as deeply under our skin with Redemption. The corrosive functions that are “just the way the world works” cannot escape a God who functions inside the world. Illegitimate children and pregnant teenagers are dignified. Pagan idolaters follow his light. Odiferous animals witness wonders. The ground that Adam was cursed to toil will sprout with Steadfast Love and Faithfulness, brought about by Eve’s cursed childbearing.

The Incarnation changes everything.

No more let sin and sorrow grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make
His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found…