If one were to try and explain the human condition by putting it into words, they wouldn't be able to. It is this deep mixture of sorrow and joy, the deep awareness of beauty and yet an irrepressible sense of brokenness, death and fleetingness. One of the greatest poverties of our times is exactly this. It's this deep sense of loneliness: an awareness of our human condition and yet this sense that we are completely alone.
Have you ever had a friend who tells you of an eternal struggle that they're having and you just wish you could say I understand or I know how you feel, but you just don't? This only deepens their suffering, their sense of loneliness. Yet the truth is that we have a friend that is closer than a brother and is even closer to us than we are to ourselves, one who can sympathize with our weakness, who was tempted as we are, in all things, and yet was without sin. This beloved, this one who knows me is the Lord Jesus Himself.
It was out of His great solidarity and His great love for us that, looking upon our human condition, its illness, its corruption and ultimately its death that, out of solidarity and compassion, He was incarnate in order to access death and to defeat it. He became man in order to enter into our condition and yet remained without sin. St. Athanasius puts it this way:
''... for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation...'' (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Paragrah 1)
That simply means that the one who created us in the first place must be the one who will recreate us. And this recreation is our salvation. It is only through Him and union with Him that we are made new. It is in this eternal union of His divinity and His humanity that we are never alone, that we are ever healed by this union, this unity. So Christ had to unite with us to remake us into His image and give us access to participate in His divine life. St. Cyril of Alexandria says:
''The One who Exists, is necessarily born of the flesh (uniting with [his] humanity), taking all that is ours in Himself so that all that is born of the flesh, that is us corruptible and perishing beings, might rest in Him. In short, He took what was ours to be His very own so that we might have all that was his.'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, SVS Press, p.59)
What can be more beautiful to know that, moved by love for His creation, the eternal Logos of the Father took what was ours in order to give us what is His, namely life, healing, and that
we would participate in His divine life? And as Peter says, we become partakers of the divine nature.
''O Death, where is your sting?'' (1 Corinthians 15:55)
Humanity forever changed, the human condition completely remodelled and recreated. That change of the human condition can only happen when this human condition that is dying is appropriated by the Source of Life Himself, the One Who Is, and He infuses life and healing in it once more. This cannot be done if the Son does not become man; He cannot heal us otherwise. Therefore we pray, in St. Basil's liturgy:
''Truly, I believe that His divinity parted not from His humanity for a single moment, nor a twinkling of an eye.'' (St. Basil the Great)
This is not simply a theological statement and our insistence and belief in His divinity cannot be parted from His humanity. We are affirming that this union is necessary for our healing in every respect of our lives, including in death. This healing or recreation is enabled in us personally in the mystery of baptism and also in the Eucharist, as the image of Christ is recreated within us. As St. Athanasius explains:
'' ''Except a man be born anew...'' He was not referring to a man's natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.'' (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Paragraph 14)
Another synonym for recreation is remission of sins. Remission means to bring back to the original state, just as someone who is healed from cancer. The term that is used is remission, they are in remission. The illness is shrinking away leaving place to the original health. Remission of sins therefore means to bring God's image in us to its original state or simply recreation. Therefore, the Creed says:
''We believe in one baptism for the remission of sins [i.e. the recreation of the soul].'' (Orthodox Creed)
It is in Christ that humanity is no longer alone. You and I are no longer ever alone. No matter how fallen and how broken we may find ourselves, we simply need to remember that Christ can sympathize with us, because He became one of us. In the union of His divinity and Humanity, we are saved, healed and recreated. He took what is ours in order to give us what is His.
To Him be the glory.