Lutherans espouse the principle that the "finite is capable of the infinite." This means that God can do what He says He can do. In God saying and doing belong together. This presumes not only that Christ can be incarnate of the Virgin by taking finite human flesh, that is flesh subject to mortality and all the changes and chances of mortal life, but also that He is able to speak about that taking in a way that permits its being delivered to us humans whom this message is intended to benefit. The Word of God becomes incarnate that He might incarnate the message in the Word of God. It does us no good for the Word to become incarnate without the message of the incarnation being delivered to us poor sinners who need it to share in the divine gift of the incarnation. Neil Postman's classic criticism of the modern media, Amusing Ourselves to Death, provides a short history of information technology that caused news reports of little value to the hearer to be communicated over vast distances. Information is one thing. Useful information is entirely another. The most important information ever shared in the world of humans is that the Word became flesh in Christ and that He wiped out the world's sin by His life, death, and resurrection. To have come among us and told no one, would have been worse than useless, it would have been immoral. Proclamation of the Word is pregnant with the incarnation of the Word.

 

Nor does God merely share information, as though He were a news reporter. The divine report of the incarnation is more than information, it places us within the scene. God's Word re-images among humans the substance that it offers. Christ still comes among us as the incarnate Lord through the delivery of the Word of God on the lips of our pastors. Many moderns mock this as impossible and silly. They point to the weakness of the proclaimers, their susceptibility to error, and the earth-bound nature of human communication. They ask, 'How could mere words deliver the divine and saving truth to us humans? How could stammering and tongue-tied people disclose the depth of the divine self-revelation?' In other words, the word could not give us the Word and the finite is not capable of the infinite.

 

But the ability of the divine Word of Scripture to convey Christ Himself to us is no more likely than that the specific human being born of Mary in Bethlehem could have been God of God. It is no more likely than that the blood that trickled from the nail wounds could save the world from sin, or that the gushing flood that spurted from his wounded side could wash away the sin of the world filling our fonts with life. It is no more likely that the one pinioned between two thieves in a tawdry execution scene displays to us the suffering of God in the world. If He has endured such rough handling for our sakes, He will place His truth in our mouths for rough handling too, seeking through it, to give Himself to the world in the Word. This is a risk that God is willing to take to save us.