Becoming Incarnational

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.- John 1:14 (NRSV)

Throughout this Advent Season, you and I have explored through my articles on the glory of the incarnation. I find it a great sense of divine grace sometimes how God interjects the incarnation in my life and the lives of those around me. Such a situation of incarnational grace occurred one night this week in a way and place I would have never expected.

            When you’re in a vocational ministry, whenever you walk into a hospital you have barriers, boundaries and rules for yourself to keep the channels of ministry where they need to be, and to remain healthy spiritually and as a person. However God often has a different conception of boundaries than we have.

            I walked into the emergency room with a dear friend and suddenly it hit me as we were sitting in a hospital room. Our job as people of faith isn’t to try and explain why bad things happen to good people with words such as, “it’s God’s will” or “God is doing this to prove something to you.” Or my personal favorite in the wake of all that has happened in the past week, “if you would have been right with God this wouldn’t have happened.” None of these statements are close to the heart of God. My conception of God isn’t that God is judge, jury and executioner, sending gunmen to Connecticut because we took prayer out of schools. My conception of God is more like my parents, who sigh at the mess I’ve made and help me pick it up.

            Our calling is to cling to the incarnation, not only cling but also become the presence of Christ on this planet. We are called to be lovers bold in the broken places as one person puts it. People in our community don’t need lectures on the advantages or disadvantages of gun control (though I remind you Isaiah prays and hopes for a day when we will rid the word of swords and spears, and frankly guns for that matter) What people need is a greater understanding of that grace that was at work before they even realized grace was there.

            My friend in the hospital didn’t need a lecture; she didn’t need theological half-truths or superficial answers. My friend didn’t need a prayer said with words, what she needed a prayer of action. She needed someone to make her laugh, to hold her hand, to show my love in the most incarnate way and assure her while I could never understand what she was going through, I would be present with her.

            That’s the beauty of the incarnation, that’s what we need to articulate as a community. The Word became flesh. Today, in the 21^st century we are that flesh. We are the flesh and bone through which God speaks, acts, and redeems.  My hope for you is that the Word truly is flesh for you this season. I hope and pray that you have a blessed Christmas with friends and family gathered near, and you may experience the incarnation in your own life. Merry Christmas.

My Article of Response to An Elementary Shooting

            The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light. Those who walked in the shadow of death, on them light has shined. What is the response to such a senseless tragedy? I included that passage from the Jewish Scriptures out of Isaiah as I am normally a writer for the faith section, but I think today we can unite not only as people of faith, but across faith-boundaries, across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic boundaries to pause for a moment to consider a tragedy that has struck our nation.

            There are times that are lives are shaken by the reality of the darkened world in which we live. We unite as a people under the banner of hope, a banner that hopes for a day where we will beat our swords (and guns) into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. I write not under my normal banner of faith, because some people understandably don’t have faith at a time like this. The one thing that unites us as a community like Statesville, or Newtown is that we wake up the next day and do what needs to be done to take care of the children.

I’m reminded of a poem I read that goes like this, “It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.” Feeding the children, spiritually, emotionally, physically we must feed the least of these. We must wake up tomorrow and try to explain to the younger generation how someone could commit such a crime

The reality of life is that we will face death. Where is the hope in that? Today let me provide you with this answer. Today, if you have children, hug them, offer them hope, if you have grandchildren, offer them a kiss and a smile. If you have a next-door neighbor who is young go visit them and their family. Remember that our job today and in the days to come is not to rationalize the actions of mentally unstable person, but to do what it takes to change the world.

If you do go to a church or synagogue or mosque pray that peace might take its place at the table of our world. If you don’t go to a place of worship pause for a moment and hope for a better, more stable world. As we approach the Christmas holiday let us be mindful of those families in Newtown who will not have a Christmas that will ever be the same. In a town that is not much bigger than Statesville let us be thankful for the teachers in our communities, the children in our lives. Let us offer them hope; let us offer each other hope. Not a hope that will go away in a few weeks after this tragedy is committed to history. Let us show that today is the day we decided, that hope is real and peace is imperative.

The Easter of Christmas

            Around this time as our hearts and minds turn to Christmas, the last thing on our minds is Easter. My mom and I recently had a conversation on whether it was theologically correct to wear a cross around your neck around this time, the symbol of Christ’s crucifixion, and even further, should a church celebrate communion, the recalling of the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. Should a church recall these stories during this season? Should we concentrate on the resurrection instead of the incarnation?

            I want to approach this the same way I approach Jesus’ divinity and humanity. If you walk into most church’s you will notice there are an even number of candles. One tradition suggests that this was because it proclaimed that Jesus was both fully human, and fully divine. Fully equal in his Godliness and human nature, as you can well imagine this whole understanding has caused countless gallons of ink to be spilled by theologians with their own unique perspective on things.

            We who claim the name of Christ live in a faith of juxtapositions; we believe that the incarnation and resurrection are equally important. We understand that Advent and Lent both lead to something magnificent, whether that is through the birth of a baby or the death of someone who didn’t deserve to die. Both convey different emotions but both show the reality of God’s loving grace in our lives.

            I was in Statesville this past weekend working for Nicholson Funeral Home. It seems this time of year, unfortunately and for whatever reason death is even more real leading up to Christmas. As I was reading scripture at a funeral of a dear family friend, Maxine, I realized that the same Scriptures that were read at her funeral were ones of Advent expectation. Within our deaths we find life, and within our lives we find death. Just like the incarnation and the resurrection they are events that work together, a symbiotic relationship requiring more understanding than we humans have.

            I write this article not in the hopes of articulating a theological concept that many theologians with far more degrees than me have trouble understanding. I write this to get you thinking, how is Christ’s resurrection playing out in your life this Christmas? And conversely as we begin a new year and approach Lent how is the story of Christmas fueling your hope of resurrection?

            We live in a world that we will never understand, and we have a God that we haven’t even scratched the surface when it comes to understanding the Divine. So maybe it’s best to wrestle with those concepts of resurrection vs. incarnation, and eventually find that they weave together a canopy that surrounds and sustains us, that canopy is known as the grace of God. This Christmas if your church is celebrating communion, consider that God is working, creating and restoring the resurrection in your life through the glorious incarnation of Christmas. What better present could we ask for?