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The incarnation of Christ means that Jesus of Nazareth was fully human. No we don't understand how anyone can be divine, sinless,all powerful,and yet fully human, any more than we can understand how God can be almighty, and at the same time allow us free will, but believing that he does is the only way of making sense of the story of you and me.
Jesus was fully human. As the Bible puts it "The word, the intelligence of God, became flesh and dwelt for awhile amongst us": pitched his tent, like Moses and company pitched the tabernacle, like a huge tent, in the midst, the point of which was so that God's presence could fill it.
It is that very earthiness of Jesus and the gospel that sticks in so many throats,both ancient and modern.If only he'd been a little less like us and more like the Greek gods who entered the drama at the end to administer punishment and award prizes and provide, if not happy endings, pointed ones. If only he had come as a spirit of illumination to be discovered by the gurus of meditation and thought. If only he had come as the spirit of nature, or of justice, or of love, and sweetness, an influence of some kind. If only.But he was born,a messy business being born,he was a baby: A blow of the hand can kill a baby. He grew up in working class Northern Israel home, and came onto the world scene a man amongst men. He was real: he hungered, he thirsted, he laughed, he cried, he loved-he was flesh and blood throughout. He died brutally, tortured to death at 33 years of age.Yet I for one, and billions better than I, say his way of living is the only worthwhile life there is for the human race.
As you listen to this, remember,water means baptism, blood means the cross.
"Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the one who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. or there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement." 1st Letter of John 5: 5-8.
A Prayer or Hymn:
I cannot tell why he whom angels worship should set his love upon the Sons of Men. But this I know, that he was born of Mary when Bethlehem's manger was his only home and that he lived at Nazareth and laboured, and so the Saviour of the world is come.
Now read the First Letter of John Ch.5.
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