Advent Scripture: O Sapientia

Sarah and I are working through the seven names of Christ that are traditionally observed in the days leading up to Christmas, and yesterday was Wisdom. It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite prophecies of Christ's incarnation, which is perhaps also my favorite Christmas Scripture as such:

Who has found the place of Wisdom,
who has entered into her treasuries?
O Israel, how vast is the house of God,
how broad the scope of his dominion:
Vast and endless, high and immeasurable!
Who has gone up to the heavens and taken her,
or brought her down from the clouds?
Who has crossed the sea and found her,
bearing her away rather than choice gold?
None knows the way to her,
nor has any understood her paths.
Yet he who knows all things knows her;
he has probed her by his knowledge--
He who established the earth for all time,
and filled it with four-footed beasts;
He who dismisses the light, and it departs,
calls it, and it obeys him trembling;
Before whom the stars at their posts shine and rejoice;
When he calls them, they answer, "Here we are!"
shining with joy for their Maker.
Such is our God; no other is to be compared to him:
He has traced out all the way of understanding,
and has given her to Jacob, his servant, to Israel, his beloved son.
Since then she has appeared on earth, and moved among men.

Christ is depicted at length in all lofty and inscrutable divinity. The author seems to conclude, "Such is our God; no other is to be compared to him" -- but this is followed by a colon, indicated an explanation to come. We expect the praise of God's grandeur to continue, but instead we suddenly shift registers: God is incomparable is not by virtue of cosmic greatness and inscrutability, but because this God has traced out for us the way of divinity, giving God's very self to us. There are few sentences in Scripture that capture for me the profound act of incarnation better than the simple, beautiful statement, "she has appeared on earth, and moved among men."