Merry Christmas
Okay, it’s a day late, but Merry Christmas to you!
As you probably know, Christmas is more than just a one day remembrance of Jesus’ birth. It is that, but it is also so much more! The event of Christmas, the Incarnation, invites us into a new way of life and gives us a foundation for our spirituality.
The word Incarnation means to be “embodied with flesh”, or simply “in flesh”. In John 1:14 it is said that “the (God’s) Word was made flesh” in the person of Jesus. To have an Incarnational Spirituality means two things:
Dead Like Me: Life After Death trailer
1. Our spirituality imitates the humility of the incarnation of Jesus
2. We put “flesh” to our spirituality and see that our whole life is spiritual in God’s eyes.
In the Incarnation, Jesus performed the most humble acts of all time. Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that he stepped down out of heaven and became a human being. God knew that we humans could not reach him on our own, so instead of letting us go he came down to us. This is the ultimate in humility and it calls for those who want to follow Jesus imitate it. Philippians 2:3-5 (which precedes the telling of Jesus’ humility) says that we should have the same mind and the same attitude of Jesus in this way. Christmas is an opportunity to be reminded of the Christian call to humility. Humility has got to be one of the hardest virtues or fruits to obtain, but we must remember that we don’t become humble by trying to be humble,. We become humble by doing things (like service or simply putting yourself in the other persons shoes) that will naturally and progressively make us more humble.
Second, Christmas reminds us that all of life is spiritual. God became FLESH. He became a real live human being! In this, God shows us that our human life, though it is tainted and corrupt in many ways, is valued and is spiritual. Very often we have the tendency to disconnect our everyday life from our spiritual life, but the Incarnation calls us to an integration of the two. Our everyday life matters to God. Jesus didn’t begin the ministry that we read about in the Bible until he was 30 years old. That means for 30 years, God lived a “normal” life just like you and me. He worked, had family and friends, and did all the things a person of his time would do. But, we can be sure that he didn’t just “do” these things without any thought while he waited for the right time to begin his more “spiritual” work. If this time in his life didn’t matter to God, than he wouldn’t have gone through it. But, it did matter and our everyday normal life matters. Incarnational Spirituality invites us to begin to see every aspect of life as spiritual and interconnected.
Christmas is much more than a one day celebration, it is a yearly invitation to live incarnationally. And it is not just a remembrance of Jesus birth, it is also a reminder that God is with Us (Emmanuel). Robert Webber said that, “God united himself with humans in order for men and women to be united with God.” This is what Christmas is truly about! As you continue to celebrate, remember these things and begin to live the message of Christmas every day.
Merry Christmas!
