Incarnation: The God-Man

    John 1: 14

 

 

          In our study of the Essential Tenets of ECO, we now arrive at Incarnation. This is the term we use to refer to that which happened in Bethlehem a couple thousand years ago. It was the night when Mary gave birth to her first child. She named him Jesus. She gave birth to the God-Man. Matthew 1:23 calls him Immanuel: God with us.

           The Apostles Creed tells us that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.          Think about that. God the Holy Spirit is the father of God the Son? Jesus has no biological father, as least not in the way we humans define biology.  Jesus is. He never was not. He is God’s only son, but he is begotten, not created or made. The gospels of Matthew and Luke record a virgin birth; that is, birth of the child Jesus, to a virgin named Mary. The father was not her future husband Joseph; he was God the Holy Spirit. And yet, though those two gospels testify to a virgin birth, the genealogies of these gospels trace Jesus not to Mary, but to Joseph. So if their aim was to prove Jesus the Son of God, born of the many prophecies of the Old Testament, didn’t they miss their mark?   Mary is not of the stump of Jesse that Isaiah proclaims. Joseph is in that line, but Jesus does not come from Joseph. The other two gospels don’t even mention the birth of Jesus, nor does the apostle Paul. But John does tell us that

Jesus was there from the beginning of creation, that in the Incarnation, he became flesh and dwelt among us. So what is the virgin birth about? Maybe we should see it for what it is—just one fact of a much bigger picture. So—just what do those stories mean?

          God came down, came down as one of us and stepped into the chaos and the mess and the hate and the injustice and the poverty. He came barefooted and bled with us. He came in a stable in a cave in a one donkey town. The Incarnation could not have had more lowly beginnings and yet, Jesus is the only one of us who can trace his roots to the Trinity of God, Son and Holy Spirit.

          It’s really hard to get your mind around God being human. Maybe that’s why we have some facts, some witness from the gospels. Jesus came on a date. The gospels are specific enough for us to be able to pin down when. We can even pin down where. It was in Bethlehem at census time. There’s geography and politics. His “socio-economic” background? Poor probably covers it nicely.

          Now this is history. No question about it. But there was other history being made at the time, and Jesus didn’t ring the history bell very hard on entry. This is not cellphone video history. It’s not admissible in a court of law. It’s evangelistic history. The shepherds never swore out affidavits. It’s one of those belief things. If you believe, there is a lot of proof. If you don’t, well…there’s room for that too.

            As beautiful as it is, why would God, the God of creation, of the universe, choose to arrive as human on earth, much less aa a helpless baby? Here is one of those God moments from which we can begin to see our Creator. The story of the Incarnation is the story of a radical invasion of God into our world! At least one thing is clear in all the gospels, and perhaps even more particularly in Matthew and Luke, who choose to cover the birth event. The thing is this. Jesus was flesh and blood. He was a baby boy who grew to manhood around other boys and girls. He ate the food, drank the water, even cried, just like the rest of us. John’s gospel reminds us that he was the Word, and that the Word became flesh and lived here, right down the street from you if you were living in the north country of Israel back then.

          Jesus was a Jewish boy growing up in a Jewish household at a time in history when being a Jew was often something to be joked about. In fact, except for that short golden age of David and Solomon, there are few times in history when the Jews have not been laughed at or scorned or mass murdered. In other words, he belonged to a people group. Just like we identify ourselves as southerners or Scots Irish or African American or Hispanic, Jesus our Savior was also a Jew. And he came as a man. He could have come as a woman. The only reason I bring this up is to more completely prove his humanity. It doesn’t matter that Jesus lived on earth as a male rather than a female. What matters is that he was flesh and blood and flesh and blood comes generally as either male or female.

          Jesus was not a spirit. He was as real as you and me. Did he get hungry? Did he get thirsty? Read the gospel accounts of his temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Did he get tired? Read those same accounts about Jesus trying to get away from the crowds to rest. Did he experience emotion? Read the account of the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wept for him.

          Jesus didn’t know everything. He couldn’t. For the only time in eternity, Jesus was separate from God, separate from the Trinity. He had to be. He was a man. He was the God-Man, but he was a man. Luke tells us that he grew in wisdom. He didn’t arrive as an infant with the full package.  Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 13 that only God knows the day or hour; that not even he, the Son of Man, knows that time.  In the 15^th chapter of Mark, Jesus suffers on the cross and calls out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yes, Jesus was fully man!  

          And yet, in thirty three years on this earth, fully exposed to every temptation, Jesus did not sin. As an adult, he sought out sinners and ate with them, partied with them. He counted political zealots, tax collectors, social outcasts and harlots among his friends. How did he do this? How could he be constantly exposed to the underbelly of civilization and yet live without sin? He could because he lived it in obedience to God. Theologian Shirley Guthrie says Jesus “fulfilled his true humanity in the image of God.” Think about that. When we do something wrong and say I’m only human, we are dead wrong. What we mean is we are disobedient and selfish. Being human, really human, is acting out in the image of God. That’s how we were created. That’s how Jesus lived on earth without sin.

            If that were the end of the story, it would be a great story. Jesus could take his place among the greats of history as a revolutionary political activist, a moral hero, a role model like no other. But it is not the end of the story. It is, rather, the beginning of the greatest story ever told. The Incarnation, the miraculous birth, of Jesus is a sign. You can’t explain the birth of Jesus, his origin, his life, in ordinary human terms. That is where the Incarnation becomes this powerful engine for driving one of the great supernatural events of history. It is the bookend to the passion story. It is as powerful as the Resurrection. Jesus comes from God! In his own words in John’s gospel, Jesus says to a questioning Philip: “To see me is to see the Father.” He is Emmanuel: God with us.

          The gospels, indeed all the New Testament and the Reformed Confessions and Creeds, make it clear that Jesus was both divine and human, fully God, fully man. That is high theology. We can’t get there from here. No one else has ever been that, ever done that. No one else ever will. The essential tenets of ECO remind us that “His divinity is not impaired, limited or changed by His gracious act of assuming a human nature, and His true humanity is not undermined by His continued divinity.” They state further that, as the Bible tells us, the risen Jesus ascended to heaven “in His resurrected body and remains fully human.”  Lastly those tenets state that it is only through the Holy Spirit’s work in us that we can make these confessions of faith.

          It’s not the virgin birth that is the miracle, though that certainly is miraculous. It’s not that Jesus came to earth with the power of God within him, though that can certainly be assumed.

We can see God in the way Jesus performed so many mighty works and deeds. We can see God in the way Jesus spoke, not by referring to a higher power, but by claiming to be that power, by speaking with the authority of God himself.

          But even these things, these mighty deeds, the claim to divinity, the authority with which Jesus spoke, were imitated by others. How can we tell he is the real deal? Guthrie suggests that we should consider something he calls the great reversal. Look at what Jesus did. Look at how he acted. Look at what he said. He didn’t seek earthly power or acclaim or even recognition. He sought relationship with those he met. He sought connection with who they were and he sought it where they lived. Jesus affirmed our humanity in everything he said and did. He told us in his life that we matter. We matter! He became small so that we come become exalted. That is the great reversal. He is exalted not in his power, but in his humility, his meekness. He can and does accomplish his will not only in his might, but also in his voluntary weakness. Who else has ever done that! Jesus challenges us not only to look for his coming, but to live in his presence!

          Incarnation. Fully god and fully man. Thank them both…for who He is.