Amazement in our worth and dignity

Pope John Paul II defined Christianity as "deep amazement at man's worth and dignity." I love this because I think this must be why God chose to come here as a human to save us: He was deeply amazed by us, his creations, and wanted so badly for us to believe our own worth and dignity -- the worth and dignity he placed inside us when he made us in his image -- that he decided to become human, to show us that being human is good and holy, that it is enough. He wanted to save us from ourselves and our own unbelief, to restore our trust in his words that declared us very good at our creation.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, they didn't believe that being human was enough. They thought what God had given them as a man and a woman and how he had made them was somehow lacking. Instead of trusting God's creation of them as human and their union with him, they chose the fruit, which they were promised by the serpent would make them like gods and give them knowledge of separation. But God had made them in the very beginning in his image; it was from not acknowledging this that they sinned.

Many -- if not all -- of our sins spring from our lack of deep amazement of man's worth and dignity, from our lack of trust in God's utter amazement in man's worth and dignity. God made us human, and therefore it is good and it is enough to be human. It is enough to not be perfect. It is enough to need the arms of a loving Savior to fall into, to let him save us from our sins as we place ourselves in his care.

This Christmas season, I reflected for the first time on why Jesus chose to come specifically as a baby. Babies give us delight; they are innocent and pure and they need us. They love us unconditionally and are free of judgment. They trust us. In turn, we trust babies. We love them fully and sacrifice for them. We are our best selves for them because their purity and unconditional love naturally elicits that response from us. They are simple, earlier versions of ourselves. We are in awe and amazement of them, even when they do only the tiniest things. Jesus came as a baby to let us know him in this uncomplicated way free of fear. He came this way so we might place our trust in him, so he could lead us to see the worth of a human life.

Believing we are made in God's divine image, that we have priceless worth and dignity beyond compare, changes everything. It frees us to respond openly to God out of gratitude and to love others fully without judgment as he does, because we know that everything we are is a gift, and we recognize this same gift in others.