The Meaning of Incarnation

... Jesus is the one in whom God's relationship with us attains perfection. In Jesus, unity with God takes a perfect form; here humanity has become God's own. That is the fundamental meaning of the incarnation, of God's becoming human.... The point of incarnation is therefore, as it was for the early Greek Fathers, the perfection of humanity; this is human-centered Christology  just because it is an incarnation centered one. By way of this perfected humanity in union with God, God's gifts are distributed to us-- we are saved-- just to the extent that we are one with Christ in faith and love; unity with Christ the gift-giver  is the means of our perfection as human beings, just as the union of humanity and divinity in Christ was the means of his perfect humanity. United with Christ, we are thereby emboldened as ministers of God's beneficence to the world, aligning ourselves with, entering unto communion with, those in need as in Christ was for us in our need and as Christ was a man for others, especially those in need.

--Kathryn Tanner (1957- ), American Episcopal theologian and professor, in Jesus, Humanity and Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology, p. 9