... we need to know. Christian scripture and tradition tell us that, in the birth of Jesus, an aspect of God's own being took flesh to dwell among us as one of us. One of our favorite Christmas carols has us singing, "Veiled in flesh the God-head see; hail incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel." What does all of that mean? And what should it mean to us? It is important for us to know. The book of Hebrews tells a story that will help us understand. But first, let me tell you ...
... between his divine and human natures. So it is with God’s presence: We need the “golden” mean here too. We need to find a way to affirm both the spirituality of (defying his absolute identification with anything that is institutional and physical) and also the incarnational nature of our Lord. We want to affirm his presence in Christ, in the church, in the Bible, in preaching, and in worship. But we also want to affirm with the dream reported on in our lesson that God is more than the visible means he ...
... , it is obvious that Chairman Mao will take his place in history with other great shapers of national life, but the limitation is still there. Unlike Jesus, the word almost became flesh. But with Jesus, the Word became flesh. This is the incredibility of the Incarnation — that the radiant glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus is central in the Gospel because Jesus is God’s movement of love toward us. Jesus Is God’s invitation to salvation and eternal life. Jesus is God’s affirmation ...
... Him, and with Him, and through Him, we ascend to a new life of grace in our souls. What has been history, and is history, is now present. In the mystery of Holy Communion, we participate and share in the mystery of Christ's Life now: in His Incarnation, in His Last Supper, in His Crucifixion, in His Resurrection, in His Ascension. And this is something that God tells us: that in Holy Communion we participate and share in His Life. That because we have lived after Him in history, we would not miss out. That ...
... life, that sets cords of assent resonating in our souls. Very little that Jesus said was new. His life, not his words, was his declaration. His word is what He does When word and life come together in such verifying harmony you have truth. And this was the incarnation. Look at life and listen to his words. Persons argued abut God and god’s nature: Jesus met them with the declaration “I and the Father are one. He who hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (John 10:30, 14:9). There is no room for further ...
... can convey a revelatory message. It is God. But specifically God in communication with humanity. Psalm 33 is a good example of how the Creator God is also “God come down or YHWH” and is also the breath/voice/message of God, which is dabar YHWH.** It is God incarnate in some way so as to communicate directly with one or more of God’s people. When the Apostle John speaks of the “logos,” he is referring to this idea of the dabar YHWH. And Jesus is the message. He is God’s voice and God’s method ...
... . He was wrong, of course. The body of Jesus Christ is not in Heaven, but right here on earth. That is what the New Testament calls the Church: “The Body of Christ.” With all of its faults and foibles, the Church is the extension of the Incarnation. The Word became flesh in Bethlehem, and continues to become flesh in all of the other cities of the earth through that faithful band of people who dare to call themselves by Christ’s name, and who try, however imperfectly, to live out His love in this ...
... at home we would have no power over Satan. If God had stayed at home there would be no victory over death, no promise of eternal life. But God didn’t stay at home. He walked down the stairway of heaven with a little baby in His arms – incredible – the incarnation: The Word became flesh. If we don’t get this in our understanding of the Gospel, we won’t get the rest. If we don’t begin here, there is no place to go. There will be no renewal of the Church, no revival of faith among us, no witnessing ...
... the divine love Jesus brought into that Bethlehem stable should flow through your veins, your heart, your spirit, every day. The question is less "WWJD" or "What Would Jesus Do?" but "WIJD" or "What Is Jesus Doing?" You are the completion of the Incarnation. Anything less is like undercooked turkey or unwrapped presents. If the turkey is not cooked through, it can make you sick. If the presents are tossed in an unwrapped heap, they look abandoned and thoughtless. If you don't complete these holiday projects ...
... and stone. I love how Ronald Rolheiser puts it in his masterful book “The Holy Longing” (1999), 97, which explores why Jesus used the fleshy word “sarx” rather than the more cleaned up word “soma” when it came to talking about the “body of Christ:” The God of the incarnation tells us that anyone who says that he or she loves an invisible God in heaven and is unwilling to deal with a visible neighbor on earth is a liar since no one can love a God who cannot be seen if he or she cannot love a ...
... reading, Paul began his discussion of the meaning of the birth of Christ with these words, “bringing salvation to all.” For Paul, the Christmas story is a story of salvation. It is the story that we will have an Aldersgate experience. The moral power of the incarnation will have us accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and by grace we will experience salvation. We will know what it means to be forgiven. But Paul then wrote if the Christmas story brings us to accept Jesus as our Savior then we must ...
... down upon him “in bodily form” “like a dove.” A dove….like a white, fluttering, wavering, body? Did God embody Jesus in this experience? Was he suddenly transfigured into the wavering breath/light of God? Did he glow from the inside out as God portrayed the incarnation from Father to Son through the vehicle of the Holy Spirit? We can only wonder what that must have looked like! But surely in all of that white light, he glowed! And a voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in ...
... word became flesh and dwelt among us." The meaning becomes clearer when we use the Phillips translation of this sentence: "So the word of God became a human being and lived among us." Thus an American theologian, Nels Ferre, has coined a new term for the incarnation, enmanment. Whether we use the word of Latin or of English origin, it stands for something astounding and unfathomable. The baby born to a young Jewish girl almost 2,000 years ago is none other than "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very ...
... a house. The overjoyed wise men came to the house and they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. The mystery of the incarnation. The God of all creation became a tiny babe in a manger. There's something about a mystery, isn't there? St. Paul writes in our lesson from Ephesians: "Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, that ...
... was welcomed into the grace and presence and nature of his Father in heaven and somehow, mind boggling to our limited understanding, our human flesh — our eyes, ears, hands, and sides — are represented in the very triune Godhead. As we reflect upon our Lord's incarnation, we may become overwhelmed as we recognize that the very flesh that is ours has been made holy and has been raised to the glory of heaven by the ascension of our Lord. This flesh that constitutes our bodies was and still today is in ...
... most of us. Nor do we tilt our heads in a questioning way at the direct statement, "I will raise them up on the last day." We -- most of us -- accept in faith, quite unquestioning faith, that the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, became incarnate, that is, that divine being "was made man" as the Creed states it. Not simply a man, a male child, a boy baby, although that we accept as true, but more than that, the representative of all human beings. In the Genesis account Adam was the first person ...
... Everything is beautiful, in its own way." Anyone who has seen the torture chambers of the Nazi regime, any surgeon who has removed a malignant tumor, any reformer who has tried to clean up government, knows that everything is not beautiful in its own way. To affirm the incarnation does not imply that life is rosy or that people always do the right thing or even the best they can. It does not mean that people do not waste their lives, get hurt, or hurt other people. It does not mean that there is no hardship ...
... other things. We may be divided by theologies, how we baptize people, who we allow around the Lord’s table and even which political party with which we feel most comfortable. But on one point we all agree; God became flesh and dwelt among us. That is the incarnation. That is the second thing for which every Christian can give thanks. God became one of us. Do you see that there was no other way God could have done it? It was essential that the God of all creation take upon himself the flesh and frailty of ...
... advent season. This is the meaning of Christ’s coming. The great miracle in contrast. Light and life set against death and darkness. Let’s focus even more specifically. The core of it all, the seed miracle in contrast is this, human babe, divine incarnation. Human babe, divine incarnation. Ask a Buddhist what he thinks about God being born a baby. Ask a Hindu. Some time ask a Muslim. You might even ask a Jew. Ask any devotee of a religion rather than Christianity, what they think of a God who would come ...
... awe in contemplating God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ, is a proper Christian response. We need to be breathless now and then. We need to be speechless. We need to be in awe over the awesome reality of God, and the mysterious fact of the incarnation, and know that these are beyond our comprehension. Yet, we can ascend the great heights of this mountainous truth by a simple exercise. That is, by comparing Jesus to the first man Adam. Paul did that all the time. He called Jesus the second Adam. And he ...
... to experience life on our terms. This true story, which I have said is a parable, reminds me of a famous fictional story called The Prince and the Pauper. Only in recent years has the truth dawned on me that this tale is also a parable of the Incarnation. A young prince is depicted as having exchanged his rich garments and crown for the rags of a beggar. He gave up the comfort and protection of his palace for the rough-and-ready life of a street urchin. He moved upon the dirty, ragged, hungry, and looked ...
... 's sorry little treats for what they are compared to the great banquet in the kingdom. Here, then, is the final intersection of Heaven and Earth. It is not the far-off experiences of the shepherds and the Magi. It is not the one-time event of the Incarnation. Rather, it is the intersection you and I experience daily. Indeed, it is the intersection that is our very address, for we live at the juncture of this world and the kingdom of God. I live my life in this world, but not for this world. Your residency ...
... Jesus' patient explanation to the confused Philip revealed for all of us the gift of divine presence which we may all enjoy. The God who strolled with us throughout the garden of Eden in the days of our innocence still yearned to join us here on earth. The incarnation of Jesus Christ and the continuous indwelling of the Holy Spirit made this possible, but at the high cost of the crucifixion. Now God joins us where we are, not where we ought to be, for we have a God who goes anywhere to get us, even descends ...
... other than Christianity what they think of a God who would come to earth in a little baby. After a while, it may begin to dawn on you that this is pivotal to Christianity. It is the crucial event: the miracle in contrast - human babe, divine incarnation. No one has captured this more grippingly the Robert Southwell, the religious poet of the 16th century. He wrote most of his poems from prison, and in the midst of 13 applications of torture. He was finally hanged and quartered, but not before giving the ...
... like "atonement" just to be obstinate. It is that Christian theology — the Christian story — really is so distinct from secular understandings of things that it has sometimes been forced to coin its own language. This passage reminds us that there is a lot at stake in the incarnation. A lot more than just a precious baby and a young mother. Of course, you still have the crib up and the cards out. It's okay to look at them. The manger scene is part of Christmas. Today's lesson, however, reminds us to put ...