I began by asking my Father to show me the difference between how the prophets worked to “win back the bride,” and how His Son did this. Through Hebrews 1 and 2, He showed me that the prophets told us God’s word. They spoke. Jesus, however, was the Word. He showed us the Father! He showed Him to us by becoming, for a while, a little less than the angels—man. That is a paradox, but, like all paradoxes, it contains a great truth.

Next, I asked my Father what it meant, in Philippians 2, to “empty Himself.” In response, He showed me that Jesus emptied the “allness” of His divinity into the confines of the finiteness of His humanity. He showed me, too, that this was a total commitment.

Hebrews 2:17 says He was like us in every way but sin. How like us? I asked. He was like us in every way—He had to eat and breathe, He had all of our emotions, He was tempted, etc. He also had to grow in wisdom. But He was Wisdom! Another paradox! I asked to understand this.

He has two natures. His Godly nature is all-wise, but His human nature, like ours, was not. To be truly human, He had to grow in wisdom, but His Godly nature saw to it that He did. His human nature, then, could not have had the full awareness of His Godly nature. He was aware of His Godly nature but not aware with it.

Union is a key to understanding here. He was human and God perfectly united. As we grow toward a more perfect union with God, our Father grants us ever-greater graces to grow even closer to Him. Jesus was perfectly united from the moment of the Incarnation, in a manner that we will never have. From that moment, his Godly nature provided all possible “graces” (I’m not sure that’s the proper word in this context) to be perfectly human and the perfect human. (1)

Then I asked my Father to explain to me about His being “under the law”—Galatians 4:4. He showed me the perfect obedience of His Son, God living within the structure of His own law.

“The Word made flesh” of John 1 amazes me too much to ask questions about. Creator becoming a creature! That’s something to savor, right now, not question.

What does it all mean? On one level, it is Jesus being the perfect model for us. He shows us the total commitment that we have to make to reach full union with God. We have to empty ourselves of ourselves and obey. But, how does He show us what God is like by becoming perfectly human? God loved us so much that He emptied Himself out, in all senses of the word, to become one of us. When we know He loves us that intensely, how can we respond but with love of Him?

(1) Spiritual director: God is telling you a lot about Himself.