The Gift of Emmanuel

Isaiah 63:7-9; Matthew 2:13-23

December 30, 2007

by Dr. Charles Parker

I. Introduction

Today in churches across the world, worship is a little subdued, the songs are quieter and the numbers of parishioners small. The excitement and anticipation of Christmas Day is over, and the world moves on. Friday in the office, we packed away all of the candles for another year, and tomorrow the poinsettias will be gone. Just this past Monday night we were all singing “Silent Night, Holy Night,” lost in the wonder of the newborn Christ child; and today we are mindful of the millions of people in Pakistan who are mourning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and find that the chaos and violence of the world has rushed in on us again.

Our lectionary passages reflect this rapid shift in mood. We move quickly from the soft glow of the manger and the animals and shepherds, to the harsh reality of power politics, as King Herod seeks to crush a potential rival by killing all of the children in Bethlehem who might have been born near that silent, holy night. And Jesus and his family have become refugees, like so many in Iraq and Sudan, fleeing the violence in their homelands, and waiting for a time when they can return in safety again.

How quickly the magic of Christmas seems to fade. And yet, it is exactly because the world rushes in on us so quickly that we need to continue to carry the message of Christmas with us; that in the midst of the craziness and the violence and the brokenness, God has chosen to be with us. Our lectionary reading from Isaiah this morning reminds us that “in all their distress, he was distressed, and it was no messenger or angel, but his presence that saved them.”

Isaiah witnesses to the fact that in the history of Israel, God is not known primarily through God’s power or through God’s justice or even in God’s perfection, but primarily through God’s faithfulness; God’s desire to be in relationship with us and God’s commitment to trying to make that relationship work

II. Incarnation

Incarnation is a word that we hear a lot during the Christmas season. It literally, of course, means to be “in flesh” and is used to describe the way in which God goes about the work of salvation: it is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity assuming human form in Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps the apostle John witnesses to it most by clearly saying, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; literally “pitched his tent among us.” Eugene Peterson’s The Message, captures that image saying, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14).”

Now a couple of weeks ago, we were blessed to have Kendall Soulan from Wesley Seminary come and talk to us during the 10 a.m. Study hour about the Incarnation. And he talked about the fact that in the incarnation, there are two processes happening: there is the movement of the omnipotent and transcendent creator of the universe emptying himself to become like us, and there is the resulting movement as we, God’s created creatures, are lifted up so that we can become the children whom God has created us to be.

The first part of that process of Incarnation is the process of God’s self-emptying in taking on human flesh. Paul speaks powerfully to that in the beautiful hymn that he quotes in Philippians 2:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6     Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

7     but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8     And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

This self emptying and willingness to suffer is absolutely pivotal to our whole understanding of who God is. Theologian Jurgen Moltmann, writes in his book The Crucified God, that “a God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved… He cannot weep, for he has no tears. But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either. So he is a loveless being. Aristotle’s God cannot love; he can only be loved by all non-divine beings by virtue of his perfection and beauty, and in this way draw them to him.” This is the deist God, the clockmaker, who sets the universe in motion and steps aside and lets it operate on its own.

In the Incarnation, God does not wait for us to approach him, God comes to us. In the Incarnation, our God shows both the capacity to suffer and the willingness to suffer, and in doing so, gives suffering meaning and give us the grounds to hope.

But it gives us hope because of the second piece that Kendall talked about. In coming to be with us, Jesus has showed us what it looks like to be the child God has created us to be. Christ has become, in Paul’s words, the new Adam, the model for what it means to be truly human. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, released through the resurrection, we are given the power to respond to that call. So the Incarnation is both about God coming down to enter into our experience, but then lifting us up so that we can express our divine giftedness.

In Eastern Orthodox tradition, this process is call “deification.” That word strikes many of us from a western context uncomfortably. Typically, when theologians in western Christianity have talked about the Atonement, the have tended to use the language of the “forgiveness of sins.” The emphasis in the west has been on breaking down the barriers that we have placed between ourselves and God. But in Eastern Orthodox theology, that same process of Atonement is talked about in terms of raising us up so that we might claim our inheritance as children of God; the same process, just two different viewpoints on it.

About six years ago, my nieces pestered us to go see a movie that I will grudgingly call endearing called “A Knight’s Tale”, which is about a young peasant boy named Will Thatcher who masquerades as a knight to win fame and fortune and the beautiful damsel. And towards the end of the movie, Will gets caught in his lie and put in the stockade for impersonating a knight. And at the climactic moment, Prince Edward, the future King of England, who has been hiding in the crowd, steps forward, orders William to be released, and knights him.

That’s a wonderful metaphor for this second movement of the Incarnation. However hard we try to live good and moral lives, when we do it apart from the power of the Incarnate Christ, on some level, we’re like Will, always "faking it" and on the edge of being caught. That’s the trap of legalism. But in the Incarnation, the “King” steps out of the crowd and gives us, as a gift, what we were trying to claim through our own efforts, and makes us who we were created to be.

And this process of deification is not just about saving our souls, but about lifting us up as whole and complete people; it’s about the renewal of our flesh and blood humanity. Incarnation is about God hallowing and affirming all of who we are. And God’s coming to us as a human means that God is active in every effort, whether its origins are religious or not, that helps make human life more fully human. Every work that builds up a sister or brother or fights against dehumanizing oppression draws strength from the Incarnation.

IV. Conclusion

In August of last year, our family was in London, and I had the opportunity to visit John Wesley’s chapel. And I was struck on visiting the room where he died, because there’s a famous painting of his death – by a man named Parker – showing Wesley on his deathbed, surrounded by probably 20 of his followers; but when you squeeze into the actual room, you would be hard pressed to get more than a couple of very thin people in there.

In that little room on May 2, 1791, amid a small collection of his followers, John Wesley gathered enough strength to utter his final words: “The best of all is God is with us.” For John Wesley, that was the heart of the Gospel, the message of the Incarnation; Emmanuel, God with us. But that message isn’t just about a little baby in a manger. It’s about God showing us what it means to be truly human and children of the King.

Amen.