We think big when it comes to God, and rightly so. “Heaven, even the highest heaven cannot contain him” (2 Chronicles 2:6 ESV). But today we need to think small:
“O Lord, you have created all! How did you come to be so small?” (Lutheran Worship 38).
This Christmas hymn points us to the tiny Baby in a manger. But think smaller.
Today we celebrate the Annunciation of our Lord, the conception of Jesus in Mary at the words of Gabriel and through the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:31-35). This, not Christmas, is when the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
The Annunciation is God at His smallest.
How small?
Jesus, like all of us as a Zygote—a one-celled human being—could have sat comfortably on the point of a pin with plenty of room to spare. We needed such a small Savoir Zygote because we were sinful Zygotes, sinful—thus fully human—from the moment of conception (Psalm 51:5). We needed a holy Zygote to take our place. We needed a small God.
Jesus took our place from the beginning. He passed through all the stages of our development as part of the price for our redemption. This is why the Annunciation, which almost always occurs during Lent, connects so powerfully as we follow Jesus to the cross. That journey did not begin in a manger. It began in a fallopian tube. Jesus needed a back to bear our stripes and wounds. He needed to form hands and feet to be nailed to that cross. He needed a brow to feel the sting of the thorns. He needed a mouth to utter that forsaken cry. He needed a beating heart to be stilled in death. He needed a body to be buried in a tomb and then raised gloriously and victoriously on the third day.
So think small about your God today. And then be overwhelmed by the vastness of His love demonstrated in that smallness (Ephesians 3:18).