Why Christmas?

A friend and I recently talked about the reason God came into the world. The typical answer is "to save the world from sin," and there might be something to that, but my friend wondered, What if God came into the world to find out what it's like to be human? His question is worth pondering. In several Old Testament passages God seems stymied with his creatures: "Why do you persist in rebellion?" he asks Israel. Or look here at the heart-wrenching agony God goes through because his people have left him: "Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, 'We are free to roam; we will come to you no more'? Does a maiden forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments? Yet my people have forgotten me." These passages bring out a dimension in Christmas than I have not considered before. God came down from heaven to learn about us and to win us back to him. He is grief-stricken at our neglect of him and, like a mother who's lost her child, is frantic to find and coddle us. Walter Brueggemann likens God's ache for us to that which a mother feels in her breasts because it has been too long since she nursed her child.