The "Foolishness" of the Incarnation

Muslims stumble at the idea of God becoming man. They can imagine God letting a man into Paradise, but they cannot imagine a God coming to earth to live. Without being overly coarse, I have heard Muslims ask if our belief that Jesus became a man means we believe that God went to the bathroom.

They also stumble over the idea of Jesus' ancestry. That God would choose to list in His genealogy a man and woman guilty of prostitution (Judah and Tamar), a Gentile (Ruth), an adulterer/murderer (David and Bathsheba), is absolutely repugnant to them.

One Muslim apologist, in concluding his remarks on this subject, wrote (in rather archaic English):

Why should God give a "father" (Joseph) to His "son" (Jesus)? And why such an ignoble ancestry? "This is the whole beauty of it" says the pervert. "God loved the sinners so much that he disdaineth not to give such progenitors for His 'son. "

I couldn't have said it better myself. Jesus' ancestry of sinners did not pollute Him, but rather showed that Jesus fully entered into our humanity. He was born with no advantages. He came from a "dysfunctional family" like the rest of us. He grew up in poverty, in an oppressed country, in what we would today call "third world living conditions". He lived perfectly despite all of these "handicaps", removing our ability to use them as excuses for our own sinfulness. We can no longer blame our sinfulness on the bad examples we learned from our ancestors.

Thank you, God, that You left the glories of heaven for earth, to save a wretch like me.