One of the great mysteries of Christianity is the incarnation of Christ. God, who is holy, sacred, wholly other, awful, beyond words or explanations, “was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth” (KJV, John 1.14).

In Exodus 33, when Moses asked to see God, to see his glory, God told him “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (KJV, Exodus 33.20), and so God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, allowing Moses only a passing glance (KJV, Exodus 33.21-23).

But, in the New Testament, God is “made flesh” (KJV, John 1.4). In John 8, when asked about the resurrection of the Old Testament saints, Christ says, “Before Abraham was, I am” (KJV, John 8: 58). In John 10, when the Pharisees ask Christ if he is the Messiah, he tells them “I and my Father are one” (KJV, John 10:30). When Phillip asks Christ to “Show us the Father,” he is told, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (KJV, John 14.9).

In Philippians 2, Paul tells us, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (KJV, Philippians 2.5-8).

Paul calls the cross the humiliation of Christ. But that humiliation doesn’t end with the cross. On Easter Sunday morning, it wasn’t a divine Spirit that stepped from the tomb to comfort Mary in Gethsemane. It wasn’t a divine spirit that inspired the disciples on the Emmaus road. It wasn’t a divine spirit that confronted Thomas for his unbelief. Christ, who was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (KJV, Romans 8.3), at the resurrection took on once more a physical body.

In I Corinthians 15, Paul takes the Corinthian church to task for doubting the resurrection. He reminds them that, without the resurrection, our “faith is vain; [and we] are yet in [our] sins (KJV, I Corinthians 15.17), that they “which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished” (KJV, I Corinthians 15.18), and that “we are of all men [and women] most miserable” (KJV, I Corinthians 15.19).

But Christ did rise from the dead. Paul tells us Christ has “become the firstfruits of them that slept” (KJV, I Corinthians 15.20). In Ephesians 4, Paul says, “When [Christ] ascended up on high, he led captivity captive” (KJV, Ephesians 4.8). Church tradition says that this refers to the Old Testament saints, that after his death and before his resurrection, Christ led the Old Testament saints out of limbo into glory.

In her poem “Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell,” Denise Levertov describes this moment, but the focus of her poem isn’t on the rescue of those Old Testament saints. Instead, she turns to the resurrection, the re-incarnation of Christ. But unlike Paul, she offers a more human motivation for Christ’s return to “mortal flesh.”

living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud: to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food–fish and a honeycomb.
                    (Levertov, lines 21-38)

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Levertov, Denise. “Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell.” The Best American Poetry 1990. Ed. Jorie Graham. Series Ed. David Lehman. New York: Collier Books, 1990. 121-2.

© Bill Stifler, 2009