Incarnation Implications

Advent is fading, Christmas is rising, Epiphany is coming, Lent is shadowing, Holy Week is excruciating, Easter is liberating, and Pentecost is expanding. All because of Jesus, the Incarnate God of the flesh, of humanity, of personness.

I ask why?  Why did God choose to become human?  Why could not God have remained a Spirit, a mystical presence who stirred our inner self, touched our consciences, who sometimes came as fire or rain or storm, or sunrise?  Why wasn't God's liberating activity in the Exodus enough? Or the conquest of Canaan enough? Or the Restoration from Babylon enough? Or the kings, the Psalms, the Prophets enough? Why wasn't that enough so that God could just be God?

I submit these actions were not enough because God's People forgot what it meant to be a human being created in God's Image. God had to become human, to remind us again what it means to be a human being created in the Image of God, to restore the created nature of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to restore, enlighten and transform humanity's place, nature, and character in the world.

Here comes Jesus, the Christ. What happens through Jesus the Christ?

WE LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING.

What does this mean? (Sounds Lutheran!)

BECAUSE GOD CHOSE TO BECOME HUMAN AND ENTER THE WORLD:

WE LIVE OUT OF GRACE: "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (I Cor 15:10). Grace is God's love and forgiveness given to us and claiming us as part of God's family. Grace tempers any arrogance, shuts down any sense that we are "masters of our fate, and captains of our souls" (Poem: "Invictus"). Arrogance turns attention upon ourselves instead of God's higher purpose.  Grace yields the stage to Jesus. We live in the spirit of the hymn: "Give me Jesus, you can have all the rest". Through grace we humbly kneel to the will of God.  We are nothing apart from God's grace. Grace is life's starting point. Our place and purpose in the world is defined by God's grace because grace creates out of nothing. We are because of God's grace. God's mark is upon us meaning we not our own.  Through grace, our bodies, our personhood are united with God in Christ so that we reflect the character of God. God's grace makes humanity humbly holy. All this because we are "in Christ." Christ, fully divine, fully human, ocean of grace!

WE ARE FREE: "For freedom, Christ has set us free." (Galatians 5:1) In Christ, through Christ, we are forgiven, redeemed, transformed, washed by the blood of the Lamb, made new. "Dance with the Spirit [of Christ] early in the morning.  Walk with the Spirit [of Christ] throughout the long day." (Song by Jim Strathdee) "Where the Spirit of [God] is there is freedom." (2 Corinthians 3:17) We are liberated to be human beings, persons of God, to discover our gifts, to form relationships, to value our feelings, to test our minds, to respect our bodies, to use our senses. To quote Tony Campolo: "The Kingdom of God is a Party!" In Christ, we are fully human and fully alive! Only the humanity of God in Christ can liberate humanity.

WE ARE DISCIPLES: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." (Romans 12:1) In the Affirmation of Baptism (ELW), each person who stands prepared to confess their discipleship, promises to: live among God's faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the Lord's Supper, proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. All of these promises are experienced and expressed through Christ's humanity as Son of God and our humanity, within humanity.  Because we are Baptized into Christ, we look to Christ as the human example of discipleship, to imitate his actions in our contexts. Because we are "in Christ", we are bound to be Christ through our humanity. Christ's humanity is our humanity, meaning out of grace, out of freedom, we engage the world, enter the joys and sufferings of the earth and humanity, and be instruments of God's transforming will. God's grace, God's freedom, God's call to discipleship is realized through Christ's humanity lived through us. 

WE ARE CALLED TO LIVE NONVIOLENTLY: "Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection....overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:9-10, 21). Jesus' life was a testament to nonviolence. In two situations when weapons were central to the dramas, Jesus said "Enough" and "No more of this." The Fruits of the Spirit [of Christ] are: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." (Galatians 5:22-23) All of these fruits are nonviolent. These words were written by Paul, a converted Jew, who was transformed from a life of violent persecution to one of proclaimer of love. Paul in his humanity was reflecting Christ! Nowhere in the Gospels nor Paul's letters are Jesus' followers called to do violence to others. We learn nonviolence by imitating Christ's nonviolence.

It is only through becoming human in Christ that God transforms each of us and the world. In Christ, God reveals in human form what it means to be created in the Image of God and called to be Christ's holiness in the world. In Christ, humanity is sanctified because Christ's humanity was sanctified. Christ's humanity transforms and physically exemplifies God's character. Christ defines what it means to be a human being. Christ's humanity teaches us what it means for us to be a human being. We learn from Jesus how to live and what to do that we can please God and make real the Reign of God.

O Holy Night!