On the Incarnation

Painting By John August Swanson; link to art studio below

Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Poem by Clayton Libolt, reflections on the incarnation: 

When Mary held you close

in Bethlehem that night

and loving you buried

her face into your flesh,

while animal sounds and smells

filled your natal stall,

did she then from fresh skin

sense the faint fragrance of heaven?

Or did she hear

in your whimpering cries,

faint echoes of

another world?

Or touching you

for a moment touch eternity?

Or in a shepherd’s torch catch a facing glimpse

of glory of a king?

Did she that night in the sweetness of a kiss

taste what no mother had

before or ever after

tasted?

Or was it then,

as now it is,

faith that made her see,

hope she touched and smelled,

and love that she

in your newborn smile

knew to be

the meaning of her child?

—Clayton Libolt

is pastor at River Terrace Christian Reformed Church, Lansing, Michigan, more info is available on his web site at Reformed Worship:


Reformed Worship Magazine Link

Link to Art of John August Swanson