The Communion of Life with Life
“The best way to send an idea,” said scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, “is to wrap it up in a person.” The theological word for that is incarnation, meaning “in the flesh.” Jesus was the incarnation of God. Jesus was the way that God sent His idea to humanity; there was and is no better way! One of the early church fathers whose name was Ignatius explained that “by the Incarnation, God broke His silence.” Less scholarly as an explanation but equally to the point was the remark of a little girl who said, “Some people couldn’t hear God’s inside whisper and so He sent Jesus to tell them out loud.” The Gospel of John declares dramatically, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word, that living experience of God, tells out loud His truth and sees to it that we are in touch with the power and glory at the heart of Creation. We are brought into the personal presence of the lover of our souls. How great that blessing! How wonderful that gift! –Gene Bartlett
Someone with Skin
There is a small voice that penetrated the stillness of the night. It comes from the bedroom across the hall. “Daddy, I’m scared!” Out of your groggy, fuzzy state, you respond with, “Honey, don’t be afraid, Daddy’s right across the hall.” After a very brief pause the little voice is heard again, “I’m still scared.” Always quick with an insight you respond, “You don’t need to be afraid. God is with you. God loves you.” This time the pause is longer, but the voice returns, “I don’t care about God, Daddy; I want someone with skin on!”
It seems like the logic used by the little child is precisely the reason for the Incarnation. After thousands of years of being unsuccessful in being able to convince His people that He really loved them, our Creator realized that the best way to demonstrate His love for us was to send “someone with skin on.”
He Climbed in With Us
I read about a grandfather who found his grandson jumping up and down in his playpen, crying at the top of his voice. When Johnnie saw his grandfather, he reached up his little chubby hands and said, “Out, Gramps, out.”
It was only natural for the grandfather to reach down to lift him out of his predicament, but as he did, the mother of the child stepped up and said, “No, Johnnie, you are being punished—so you must stay in.”
The grandfather was at a loss to know what to do. The child’s tears and chubby hands reached deep into his heart. But the mother’s firmness in correcting her son must not be taken lightly. But love found a way. The grandfather could not take the grandson out of the playpen, so he climbed in with him. Beloved, that is what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us at the cross. In leaving heaven for earth, He climbed in with us. The Bible says, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
I Could Help Them If
Father and son were taking a nature hike through the woods when they came upon some ants working furiously to clear a path. The ants were scurrying here and there trying desperately to provide a clear path for ant travel. They worked individually as well as a team, but to no avail. Father and son watched a long time in silence. Finally the boy looked at his dad and said, “I wish I could help the ants.”
Father responded by telling his son that his presence would send them to hide for safety. After some more silence and some more observation, the son spoke with much intent. “You know, Dad, if I could become an ant, become one of them for a short time, I could help them.”
God Leads a Pretty Sheltered Life
Billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Some of the groups near the front talked heatedly—not with cringing shame, but with belligerence. “How can God judge us?” said one. “What does He know about suffering?” snapped a brunette. She jerked back a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror, beatings, torture, death!” In another group a black man lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched for no crime but being black! We have suffocated in slave ships, been wrenched from loved ones, toiled till death gave release.” Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where there was no weeping, no fear, no hunger, no hatred! Indeed, what did God know about what man had been forced to endure in this world? “After all, God leads a pretty sheltered life,” they said.
So each group sent out a leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. There was a Jew, a black, an untouchable from India, an illegitimate, a person from Hiroshima, and one from a Siberian slave camp. In the center of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather simple: before God would be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth—as a man!
But because He was God, they set certain safeguards to be sure He could not use His divine powers to help Himself: Let Him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of His birth be doubted, so that none would know who is really His father. Let Him champion a cause so just, but so radical, that it brings down upon Him the hate, condemnation, and efforts of every major traditional and established religious authority to eliminate Him. Let Him try to describe what no man has ever seen, tasted, heard, or smelled—let Him try to communicate God to men. Let Him be betrayed by His dearest friends. Let Him be indicted on false charges, tried before a prejudiced jury, and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let Him see what it is to be terribly alone and completely abandoned by every living thing. Let Him be tortured and let Him die! Let Him die the most humiliating death—with common thieves.
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the great throngs of people. But when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No one moved. For suddenly all knew that God had already served His sentence.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
One Sunday on their way home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, “Mommy, the preacher’s sermon this morning confused me.” The mother said, “Oh? Why is that?” The little girl replied, “Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?” The mother replied, “Yes, that’s true, honey.” “And he also said that God lives in us? Is that true?” Again the mother replied, “Yes.” “Well,” said the little girl, “if God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?”
God in Christ—The King Seeks a Wife
The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once sought to describe the incarnation of God in Christ. He used this simple illustration:
A certain king was very rich. His power was known throughout the world. But he was most unhappy, for he desired a wife. Without a queen, the vast palace was empty.
One day, while riding through the streets of a small village, he saw a beautiful peasant girl. So lovely was she that the heart of the king was won. He wanted her more than anything he had ever desired. On succeeding days, he would ride by her house on the mere hope of seeing her for a moment in passing.
He wondered how he might win her love. He thought, “I will draw up a royal decree and require her to be brought before me to become the queen of my land.” But as he considered, he realized that she was a subject and would be forced to obey. He could never be certain that he had won her love.
Then, he said to himself, “I shall call on her in person. I will dress in my finest royal garb, wear my diamond rings, my silver sword, my shiny black boots, and my most colorful tunic. I will overwhelm her and sweep her off her feet to become my bride.” But, as he pondered the idea, he knew that he would always wonder whether she had married him for the riches and power he could give her.
Then, he decided to dress as a peasant, drive to the town, and have his carriage let him off. In disguise, he would approach her house. But, somehow the duplicity of this plan did not appeal to him.
At last, he knew what he must do. He would shed his royal robes. He would go to the village and become one of the peasants. He would work and suffer with them. He would actually become a peasant. This he did. And he won his wife.
So did God consider how He might win humankind. God in Christ became one of us. He took upon Him the form of human flesh to dwell among us. Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.”
God Taking on Our Weakness
It is the nature of God that He makes something out of nothing. Consequently, if someone is not nothing, God can make nothing out of him. Men make something into something else. But this is vain and useless work. Thus God accepts no one except the abandoned, makes no one healthy except the sick, gives no one sight except the blind, brings no one to life except the dead, makes no one pious except sinners, makes no one wise except the foolish, and in short, has mercy upon no one except the wretched, and gives no one grace except those who have not grace. Consequently, no proud person can become holy, wise or righteous, become the material with which God works, or have God’s work in him, but he remains in his own works and makes a fabricated, false and simulated saint out of himself, that is a hypocrite. –Martin Luther
A Giving Incarnation
Shortly after World War II came to a close, Europe began picking up the pieces. Much of the Old Country had been ravaged by war and was in ruins. Perhaps the saddest sight of all was that of little orphaned children starving in the streets of those war-torn cities. Early one chilly morning an American soldier was making his way back to the barracks in London. As he turned the corner in his jeep, he spotted a little lad with his nose pressed to the window of a pastry shop. Inside the cook was kneading dough for a fresh batch of doughnuts. The hungry boy stared in silence, watching every move. The soldier pulled his jeep to the curb, stopped, got out, and walked quietly over to where the little fellow was standing. Through the steamed-up window he could see the mouth-watering morsels as they were being pulled from the over, piping hot. The boy salivated and released a slight groan as he watched the cook place them onto the glass-enclosed counter ever to carefully. The soldier’s heart went out to the nameless orphan as he stood beside him. “Son, would you like some of those?” The boy was startled. “Oh, yeah, I would!” The American stepped inside and bought a dozen, put them in a bag, and walked back to where the lad was standing in the foggy cold of the London morning. He smiled, held out the bag, and said simply: “Here you are.” As he turned to walk away, he felt a tug on his coat. He looked back and heard the child ask quietly: “Mister, are you God?” We are never more like God than when we give.
Mirror Image of God
There is a painting in a palace in Rome by Reni. It is painted into the ceiling of the dome, over 100 feet high. To stand at floor level and look upward, the painting seems to be surrounded by a fog which leaves its content unclear. But in the center of the great dome room is a huge mirror, which in its reflection picks up the picture. By looking into the mirror, you can see the picture with great clarity.
Jesus Christ, born in a manger at Bethlehem, is the mirror of God. In Him, we see a clear reflection of the Father. Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” No power on earth has done more to tame the hostile forces of humankind, and cause us to beat our swords in tools of useful productivity and our spears into peaceful instruments of creativity than this Child of Bethlehem, Who came in weakness to lead us in strength.
A Parable of Christmas Eve
Once there lived a king who had power over all nations and peoples. His courts were of richest splendor; his tables were heavy with finest food. Music and laughter and gaiety floated from his castle. Clouds wrapped it in ethereal majesty. Peasants—in their valley of violence and hunger—stopped and looked at the castle for a long while, wishing they might know the king. But none were able to reach it.
In the cold of winter, the king’s tailor entered the royal chambers with the latest additions to the king’s wardrobe. He had selected the finest materials and woven them into the most beautiful garments that eyes had ever seen.
But the king was not pleased. He ordered his tailor out, vowing to make his own clothes. The door to the throne room was shut and locked. Weeks passed. The royal court waited with anticipation to see what the king would make for himself. They knew they were bound to be blinded by the glory of it. Finally, the awaited day arrived. The door opened and the king appeared.
Everyone, especially the tailor, gasped in surprise. His Majesty was dressed in the simplest, cheapest, most unkingly garments imaginable. He had the choice of the world’s finest materials, but he had chosen to wear the clothes of a beggar.
He spoke quietly to them all: “I am going into the valley!” –Michael Daves
Much More
‘Twas much, that man was made like God before.
But, that God should be made like man, much more. –John Donne
The King Among Us
King James V of Scotland would on occasion lay aside the royal robe of king and put on the simple robe of a peasant. In such a disguise, he was able to move freely about the land, making friends with ordinary folk, entering into their difficulties, appreciating their handicaps, sympathizing with them in their sorrow. And when as king he sat again upon the throne, he was better able to rule over them with fatherly compassion and mercy. God shares in human experience and thereby is better able to accept man.
Parable of the Birds
There once was a flock of birds who forgot to fly south for the winter. Now it was late in December and it was getting awfully cold. God loved those birds and didn’t want them to freeze, so He sent His only Son to become a bird and to show them the way to a warm barn where they would be saved from the cold. Most of the birds were leery of this cocky new bird who said he knew the way to safety. The leaders of the flock felt threatened by this bird so they killed him. Some of the flock believed this new bird and were saved from the cold by flying to the warm barn as the new bird had directed. Most of the flock however refused to believe this bird and they died from the cold.