What I find most incredibly delicious about the incarnation story is that God experiences THIS LIFE in order to relate to US, and let us know that God relates to us.
This, culminating in the gift of the Cross, is GRACE and AGAPE LOVE at their best.
God, wholly other, reaches into these lives in order to let us know that we are not alone, not forgotten and not insignificant to God.
God intentionally takes on human birth in its blood, sweat and pain. God is born to a lowly human couple that had no bribe money for a room. God is born in a barn. God is born into poverty and is immediately made a political refugee in a foreign land. God experiences an itinerant, homeless life as an adult, relying on others for sustenance and experiencing the hunger, heat, cold and fatigue that come with it. God is among the oppressed masses, is chased, is betrayed, is arrested on false charges, is denied by friends and abandoned by them, is beaten, faces an unfair trial and is executed in a brutal way.
God relates to us, in our human dilemmas.
This is the WORD MADE FLESH that dwells among us... Announced, not to the mighty occupying Roman empire or the Royalty of Israel or the powerful Sanhedrin of Religious Leaders, but to the night shift of shepherds who were enduring the cold, dark and danger of their labor.
This is the WORD MADE FLESH, full of Grace and Truth... disrespected by the established religious institutions and killed by the Romans BECAUSE He brought Grace and Truth to bear in how we live in THIS PART of God's Kingdom...
This is the WORD MADE FLESH, who called not the elites or recognized, but the sinners, tax collectors and ordinary laborers to follow Him with an incredible different WAY of being in God's Kingdom, here and now...
This is the WORD MADE FLESH, who dwelt among us, experienced our life in its best and worst, and relates to US...
And we who follow Him... obey HIS commandments to live AGAPE LOVE, be of Grace and Truth in this part of God's Kingdom, here and now, we are called to be His hands and feet, arms and heart, mind and mouth in THIS PART of God's Kingdom... we are called to be FLESH MADE WORD... to LIVE what Jesus taught, commanded and exemplified, here and now...
It touches me deeply that God goes to such great lengths to relate to me/us in THIS life. It touches me that I receive Grace upon Grace and not the wrath of God. It touches me that I have been given Agape Love in order that I might be filled with light and life. It touches me so much, that I want to seek Him (HIS WORD by the Holy Spirit) out and give to Him what is most precious to me... it moves me so much that I WANT to be Jesus' hands and feet, arms and heart, mind and mouth in THIS PART of God's Kingdom... to be the FLESH MADE WORD, here and now. I want to follow Him and HIS WAY in how I live my life.
How about you?
Pastor Jamie
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