Out of love ...

‘Out of love, God becomes man. He says: "See, here is what it is to be a human being."' (Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, p. 161) It’s always struck me as a little unfair, this; which is to say that God has an unfair advantage when it comes to being a human. In other words, when religion commends us to the good life it’s as if Christ is addressing us: ‘you’re finding it hard to live a virtuous, ideal life? Well, I managed it!’ To which we might very well reply, but you’re God; it’s easy for you--easy, at least, relative to the way it is for us. As if a grown-up were to join a football game where all the other players were 5-year-olds, score dozens of goals and then say ‘but why do you say scoring goals is so hard?’