The Word of God became flesh to suffer, to suffer at our hands, because it was a servant of God's love. God's love does not come from a reaction to the world. It is a free and generous gift. But since God became flesh so that we could respond to His love, we were able to pour out our anger on Him for daring to risk changing us with His love. This may be one of the meanings of Advent culminating in Christmas: that God became flesh to suffer. The mystery of Bethlehem lies in the fact that God began to feel the cold...
(Herbert McCabe OP /1926–2001/, God, Christ and Us)
