By Julia Qiuye Zhao

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  —John 1:14

I admit that I struggled with this topic. When I think about God’s presence, I usually think about the Holy Spirit. Of course, I believe that Jesus is always present with us, but I don’t usually think of Jesus as “presence.” That particular phrase seems ambiguous, even a bit “airy fairy,” not quite what I associate with the solid, strong, physical presence of Jesus Christ, who came in flesh among us. 

However, since it is almost Advent, my mind has been on the Incarnation, the coming of Jesus in flesh among us. As I reflect on the incarnation, I think this is the key to resolving the conflict I sensed between the strong, human presence of Jesus and the seemingly “airy-fairy” way of thinking of Jesus as presence.  

Incarnation is a word that I learned at the University of Notre Dame. My faith, as a childhood convert, was always very Christ-centered, but this idea, of Jesus coming in flesh, a specific human being at a specific time in history, who experienced all that we do — who wept, who sweat, who ate and slept — brought to me a new level of intimacy with this God who did not hesitate to “get his hands dirty,” so to speak. Later on, when I encountered Asian American theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, it was the theology of the incarnation, precisely the God who came as a particular human being — in this case, a Jewish man in the first century — that helped me to make sense of the fact that God had a particular purpose in mind for making me a Chinese Canadian woman in the twenty-first century. 

This human presence of Jesus, however, is premised upon his divine presence. And this is articulated in the beginning of John’s Gospel. The first verse of this first chapter echoes the beginning of Genesis: “In the beginning.” From the beginning of creation, the Word was with God and the Word was God. He had been present in the beginning and was the source of all creation and of life itself. His presence was the light that shone in the darkness and that came to us. 

The echoing of the beginning of Genesis is deliberate. Light was the first thing that God spoke into being, and here at the beginning of John, the Word of God is said to be the light that has shone in the darkness from the very beginning. He was present from the very beginning. 

The first chapter of John continues to say that he was in the world, and the world came into being through him and yet did not know him. He came to his own and they did not recognize him. Despite not being known and recognized and acknowledged by those he came to save; his presence was constant and consistent. The incarnation of Christ, his coming in the flesh, is premised upon his being God. Before he came as the Baby in Bethlehem’s manger, he was the Creator, the Word through whom all of creation came into being. The promise and the power of Advent and Christmas, comes from this very fact. 

The name of Jesus that comes to the forefront at Advent and Christmas is Emmauel: God with us. This is not so much a name that he was called by as the fulfillment of the promise that God will be with God’s people. In coming in flesh, Jesus shows in his physical presence the presence of God that has always been there. 

St. Gregory of Nazianzus stated that all of our humanity is taken up in Christ’s incarnation. This is necessary for our healing, because whatever is not taken up in him cannot be healed.[1] In my own journey, this has included the particularities of race, ethnicity and place of origin. However, the reason that what is taken up in Christ’s incarnation, his physical presence on earth is because of his divine presence from the very beginning. Contrary to my earlier assumptions, there is no contradiction between the divine presence of Christ and his human presence. Emmanuel, as God with us, is the God who came to be with us in every way in which we are, and yet remains God.

Julia Qiuye Zhao was born in China, grew up in Toronto and completed a PhD at the University of Notre Dame before following God’s call into ministry. She completed a MDiv at Princeton Theological Seminary and a certificate in spiritual direction with Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development in May of 2023. She was ordained as a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in January of 2024 and has served in a pastoral residency at the First Presbyterian Church of Valparaiso until May of 2025 when she will begin a call as Pastor/Head of Staff at the Presbyterian Church of Clearfield, PA. 

[1] St Gregory’s letter to Cledonius (101)