A newborn baby awakens to consciousness in a world of strangers who, on their part, are equally surprised by the miracle and delight of a new life. The baby begins to hear sounds and feel touches that constitute the very beginnings of its experience, and soon begins to know the meaning of hunger and thirst, to experience the tension between heartfelt desires and unfulfilled needs, the bitterness of tears and mourning, and the joy of laughter, affection, and love.
The human condition is full of contradictions.
Even a cursory examination of the human experience shows that it is marked both by great progress and great setbacks, wonderful opportunities and sore failures, great aspirations and limited energies, amazing discoveries and severe suffering, deep sorrows and profound joys.
Every man, woman, and child knows the experience of contradiction.
Indeed, every soul knows the meaning of hope and fear, joy and sorrow. We might say that every human being is an individual reflection, in one way or another, of the universal human condition.
It is as though each soul is a little microcosm of the world at large, and needs only to look inwards in order to anticipate what others know by experience—at least in principle.
It is quite reasonable, therefore, to suppose that we all share in a generic experience that runs like a unifying thread throughout the entire human condition—this clash of contradictories that marks human history—while at the same time each person is a unique expression of the same universal experience.
We are all the same yet each one of us is different.
When the only begotten Son of God, who is from eternity, descended to earth, was clothed in human nature, and entered upon the stage of the human drama, He entered into and became acquainted with the human condition.
The Son of God became the Son of Man. He took upon Himself our own nature, and immersed Himself in all the joys and sorrows, all the hopes and fears of the human condition, in order the more completely to identify with each one of us, and to raise those who believe in Him to new life, abundant life, eternal life.
Coming soon.
L.G. Sleiman 