Incarnation implications

"The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." - Gospel of John 1:9-14 (ESV)

Modernity's skepticism often means that kids in church are taught that the Bible doesn't really mean a lot of the things it claims: Jesus didn't really walk on water; that's just a literary device! Blind and lame people weren't really healed; they were just re-incorporated into the community! And Jesus wasn't really raised from the dead; it was just the disciples' continuing experience of his spiritual presence!

I got quite a bit of this growing up, and I see quite a bit of it in mainline Protestant churches today. Let me make a couple of observations, the first one short and the second a bit longer (and with help from the bishop of Alexandria).

First, a Church or tradition that makes statements like those above has already lost its faith in God. Its people have already chosen another god to worship; they're just taking a little while to get Jesus out of the center of the picture.

Second, this kind of easy dismissal of Christianity's confessions often - no, usually - betrays a thoroughgoing adherence to a form of radical historical criticism that sets out first principles and then judges the witness of Scripture by them. In the year 2010, we know X to be true about the "natural world," so anything that appears to violate X must be false!

This approach results in an inevitable agnosticism (if not outright atheism). And it also shows a poor understanding of the theological ground of our faith. Here's why:

The Christian faith is rooted in the truth of the Incarnation. That is, God - the wholly transcendent Creator of the universe - deigned to take on flesh in order to redeem his people from the brokenness and alienation that had become their lot. The One who stands outside of space and time entered in, so that the creation might be fully renewed according to his gracious design.

If you believe that - if you believe that God has become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ - then you believe that the seemingly immutable "laws of nature" are not so immutable at all. If a God who is wholly spirit and without bounds can come to inhabit the flesh of a man, then anything is possible. All of a sudden, a virgin birth, a ministry marked by proleptic miracles, and a bodily resurrection don't seem out of character for God's Messiah at all.

"In the world you will have tribulation," Jesus tells us. "But take heart; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33b; ESV).

 In his great treatise, On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius puts it this way:

"For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood: for, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it; in the same way also the most holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in His likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the remission of sins; as He says Himself in the Gospels: 'I came to find and to save the lost.'"

 He has come. And he is coming.

Is God with us?

"They will call him Immanuel, which means, God with us."

The doctrine of the Incarnation is central to the Christian faith. It states that God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but instead emptied himself and took the form of a servant - being born in our likeness and suffering for us on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11). Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has opened the way to our reconciliation to God's own self and our restoration in God's own image.

The season of Advent is the time when we remember and re-tell the story of the Incarnation. It's a story that can border on sentimentality if we're not careful, so I sometimes think it's helpful to think of both Philippians 2 and John 1 when we're reading from the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. The One who was born to Mary is none other than the eternal Word of God, who was there at the very beginning and through whom all things were made.

But wait - there's more.

Intimately connected with the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus promised us that he wouldn't leave us alone. Indeed, he poured out the Holy Spirit onto the Church so that we could be taught, counseled, encouraged, and transformed.

An emphasis on the persona and work of the Holy Spirit is one aspect of Wesleyan theology. As Wesleyans, we understand the Spirit to be essential to the affirmation that - yes! - God is still with us.

John Wesley writes in his Letter to a Roman Catholic, "I believe the infinite and eternal Spirit of God, equal with the Father and the Son, to be not only perfectly holy in himself, but the immediate cause of all holiness in us: enlightening our understandings, rectifying our wills and affections, renewing our natures, uniting our persons to Christ, assuring us of the adoption of sons, leading us in our actions, purifying and sanctifying our souls and bodies to a full and eternal enjoyment of God."

That's a strong statement of the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. And Wesley echoes it elsewhere, particularly in relation to the work of the Spirit in salvation. For instance, look at this comment by Wesley in his sermon, "The Great Privilege of Those that are Born of God," where he speaks about what he calls, "the life of God in the soul of a believer."

Wesley writes, "It ... implies the continual inspiration of God's Holy Spirit: God's breathing into the soul, and the soul's breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, and re-action of the soul upon God; an unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be an holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God in Christ Jesus."

Our election is, it turns out, conditional. It is conditional upon the action of the Holy Spirit upon us, and upon our willingness to be swept up in that wonderful work of grace upon our souls. Wesley's statement captures that aspect of salvation beautifully. What he's describing, in essence, is what it means to be perfected by grace.

Considering the presence of the Holy Spirit with us here & now, in my mind, adds something significant to how I think about Advent.

Prepare the Way of the LORD

A Scripture passage
on this first Sunday of Advent:

A voice cries out:
'In the wilderness
prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all the people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.'

- Isaiah 40:3-5 (NRSV)

Christ the Savior is born

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

- Isaiah 9:6-7 (NKJV)

O come, O come, Emmanuel

This Sunday we enter the season of Advent, that time of anticipation and expectation when we watch and wait for the birth of the Christ child.

Perhaps now more than any year in recent times, we need Advent. We are living in a world that seems to be situated atop shifting sand. The economy is weakening rapidly. We hear of wars and rumors of wars. And many people are unsure of what the future holds for them.

I reflect on the importance of Advent in my new UM Reporter column, "Advent message needed amid 21st-century fears." At this time of the year, we have the opportunity to pause and reflect on the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation. I think at times we tend to be overly-sentimental about the familiar story of Jesus' birth. While it is good for us to know this story in our very bones, it's also good for us to look afresh on what it means for God to come into the world in human form, so that we might be saved from this world of sin and death.

At my church this Sunday, we will light the first candle in the Advent wreath, sing the great Charles Wesley hymn, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus," and remember anew the great promise of Christ's coming through the rich liturgy of the church.

He is coming. Hallelujah!

Time enough, but none to spare

I think the past few days of my life have been as busy as any I've ever had. I had to grade a bunch of final exams at the beginning of last week as a part of my T.A. duties, finished a paper on Wednesday, took a Latin final exam on Thursday, and flew to Dallas early Friday morning for a John Wesley Fellows conference. I'm back in Durham now, but I've got a lot more paper writing to do over the break. Thus, my blogging may be a little spotty over the next few weeks. I'll post when I can, but it may be more like weekly instead of two times per week.

Hope everyone is having a happy Advent. Peace +