This morning I want us to think about the incarnation, which in biblical language is to say that Jesus is
the ‘Word made flesh’ (as John’s gospel puts it),
the ‘Son of God’ (as Luke’s gospel puts it),
‘Immanuel (meaning God with us)’ (as Matthew’s gospel puts it)
in the ‘very nature God’ but who ‘made himself nothing … being made in human likeness’ (as Paul puts it in the Letter to the Philippians)
or to use the language of the longer Nicene creed that Jesus is
‘the only Son of God
eternally begotten of the Father …
who for us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven
and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made man.’
The doctrine, or teaching, of the incarnation claims that in the man Jesus of Nazareth we see God himself.
The doctrine of the incarnation seeks to name something of the mystery that in Jesus, we see one who is
truly God and truly man.
At the heart of, and unique to, the Christian faith is the incarnation …
The doctrine of the incarnation says
that in Jesus we see a real human being, this is not God wearing the mask of a human being … like something from Scooby-Doo!
that in Jesus we see a real person, who is not a little bit God and a little bit human and is not some kind of hybrid creature … like Superman …
that Jesus is by nature God, he is not adopted by God at birth or at baptism …
Jesus is truly God and truly man …
What this means is that just as I suggested creation was an act of God’s grace, so is the incarnation –
the incarnation is God’s initiative and God’s gift …
it means that as human beings we are, and were, and always will be, unable to produce a saviour ourselves independent of God …
the existence of evil, of sin and death is too big for humanity to overcome, even with all our technological advances, even with several thousands years of human civilisation …
only God can save us and the incarnation of God in Jesus says he has ...
At the same time, the incarnation wants to stress that Jesus
is not a kind of superhero, that makes him different from you or I
as the letter to the Hebrews puts it, Jesus was ‘fully human in every way / every respect’ (Hebrews 2.17)
So the creed says Jesus was both ‘conceived by the holy Spirit’ (divine initiative and action) and ‘born of the virgin Mary’ (human birth like you or I)
I said two weeks ago that Christianity is Jesus …
it is that in Jesus,
there is uniquely,
without repeat,
the incarnation of God in human flesh.
Christianity makes no sense if this is not true …
if God is not present in Jesus, there is no salvation, there is only a man dying on a cross …
if the fullness of humanity is not present in Jesus, there is no salvation … as one early church theologian puts it ‘the unassumed is the unhealed’ …
What’s the point of the incarnation?
The incarnation demonstrates God’s full commitment to all that he has created …
God continues to be bothered with creation,
God doesn’t get bored,
God doesn’t let anger get the better of him,
instead God carries on loving creation to the point of entering creation himself … as the most famous of all famous Bible verses puts it
‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son … not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him’ …
this of course must make us ask ourselves if God is so committed to creation, to humanity, surely we must be too
The incarnation shows us what it is to be human and what it is to be God. Sam Wells puts it this way:
‘in Jesus the wall between humanity and God is replaced by a window. God sees us, and we see God, like never before’ …
in Jesus, we see that being human is to be in relationship with God, and to be God is to be utterly committed to us …
this is why in Matthew’s gospel he quotes from Isaiah …
he’s not primarily interested in the virgin bit,
he’s primarily interested in saying in unequivocal terms that Jesus is God’s commitment to be with us …
Jesus is Immanuel …
we might say that even if humanity had never sinned, the incarnation would still have happened because God has determined never to be without us …
the incarnation comes out God’s abundant love, not out of our sinfulness …
that’s what it is to be God …
To be truly human is to be like Jesus …
the incarnation says that in Jesus we see authentic and true humanity … humanity as God intended …
to be human, to fully bear the image of God, is to be like Jesus … Jesus enters our real humanity, a humanity marked by sin, and yet lives it truly in obedience to the Father and dependent upon the Holy Spirit …
Jesus was as the letter to the Hebrews put it
‘like us in every respect’ (Heb 2.17) …
it was real humanity:
Jesus was genuinely tempted,
he was openly vulnerable,
he was full of real emotions …
see Jesus in the wilderness,
see the conversation on the road to Caesarea Philippi,
see Jesus at Lazarus tomb,
see Jesus in Gethsemane …
and yet though he was like us in every respect, he was, says Hebrews, ‘without sin’ …
because in the life of Jesus we see a perfect performance of God’s intention for humanity,
because the life of Jesus is one of free obedience to God the Father and one that is entirely open and responsive to the Holy Spirit …
in Jesus the Spirit is fully focused and active at every moment of his life …
meaning that whilst Jesus was really tempted, he was enabled not to sin …
the negative way of putting it is: he did not sin,
the positive way to make the same statement, is to say
Jesus was wholeheartedly obedient:
Jesus “endures our finiteness and mortality,
he endures our vulnerability and temptation,
he endures our suffering, death and judgment.
And he does not flinch …
He is tempted but he does not sin.
He endures”*
And so the point of the incarnation,
is that this true humanity that we see in Jesus,
becomes a possibility for us,
we too can live truly …
we too can live as God intended us too …
the incarnation makes the beginning of God’s new humanity:
Jesus is the template for humanity …
he is the image of God …
and through him and in him and in power of the Spirit
we are called, transformed, and are made participants
in this new humanity
that’s what baptism is …
we are baptized into the humanity of Jesus
if the incarnation teaches us that ‘God became what we are, so that might we might become what he is’ (as the church fathers expressed it) …
then baptism is our birth …
conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born into the church
and coming to worship week by week is our
learning to live out the humanity of Christ …
learning what it means to be God’s image-bearers in the world
and coming to this table, as in a moment we will do
is to confess our belief in the incarnation
for to take bread and wine makes no sense if Jesus is not fully God and fully man**
for if God has joined his life to the life of Jesus
in our taking bread and wine,
we discover we too are joined to Jesus and so to God
and so the life of God in Jesus
is the life we feed on, we are nourished by and thankful for.
Amen.
* John Colwell, The Rhythm of Doctrine
** Stanley Hauerwas, 'Incarnation', Without Apology
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