Thought for Today
Psalm 8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Isaiah 9:6 For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
John 1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
“The figure of Christ is one and the same at all times and in all places . . . Christ is not a principle according to which all the world must be shaped . . . Christ teaches no abstract ethics that must be implemented . . . Christ was not essentially a teacher or lawgiver but a human being, a real human being like us . . . Christ did not . . . love a theory about what is good. Rather, he loved real human beings . . . The point is not that God became an idea, a principle, a program, a general truth, a law, but that God became a human being.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You, pg. 175)
Christ was and still is a teacher and a lawgiver. But, Bonhoeffer’s point is that the most significant thing in the Incarnation is not some abstract set of laws or ethical practices. It is not the establishment of the Church. The most significant thing about the Incarnation, about the true reality of John 3:16-17 is that God’s love was manifested in a real human being like us. Or, at least partially like us. Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God was a real, true, living, breathing human being.
It is easy to fall into the trap of setting Jesus on some high and lofty pedestal, emphasizing the divinity of Jesus but ignoring the humanity of Jesus. It is only in that duality that Jesus was and is any different from you or from me.
Our earliest ancestors-in-the-faith recorded in Genesis, “2:7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Nothing in the Bible following that verse contradicts our understanding that life itself is a manifestation of the breath of God. John understood, and John realized that Jesus was the Incarnate Creative Word of God. Jesus was and is the “light of all people.” John wrote those words long ago, but that same light still shines today; the “darkness did not overcome it.”
What does that all mean ‘where the rubber meets the road’? That is what Bonhoeffer was trying to tell us. I am a huge fan of church doctrines and dogmas. I love the theology and the liturgy of my faith tradition. Despite that, the Incarnation, Ministry, Crucifixion and Resurrection are not about theology nor about liturgy. Those ideas and practices, the theology and liturgies, have evolved over the centuries to help and aid us in understanding what it all means where the rubber meets the road.
When we read the New Testament, Jesus did not teach a set of complicated laws or rules. Jesus lived a life of love. Jesus did not teach abstract ethical or moral precepts. Jesus loved. Jesus tried his best to explain to his disciples the true meaning of all the rules and laws handed down from those earliest ancestors-in-the-faith. Read Matthew 5. Jesus was not trying to start a new religion, to overturn the Law and the Prophets. Jesus was merely trying to ‘splain it to them and to us. When asked what was most important, Jesus replied, "Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
There is nothing abstract, intangible or even particularly intellectual about any of that. Love is not abstract, it is tangible and real. Jesus exemplified God’s love for Creation and for God’s creatures (us). By sending us the Christ, fully human and fully divine, God is telling us that “when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when we’re feeling sad” all we need to do is remember God’s love shown to us in Jesus, the Christ. “The point is not that God became an idea, a principle, a program, a general truth, a law, but that God became a human being.”
Stay safe, love God and each other, trust God,
Pastor Ray