The Truth of the Incarnation
Christmas Season offers us an opportunity to reflect on how the Incarnation transforms every aspect of our lives. What does it mean that the Source of all Life incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ? How do we experience the truth of the Incarnation in every moment of our lives?
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Transcript
See if you can picture the scene:
The culture at the time was a complex one, with many different people all connected and struggling to find meaning in their lives with many languages and customs making contact.
The ruling class was only concerned about their own well-being, with those who were very rich only focused on grasping resources to improve their own situation, thinking if they somehow had more money they would feel more certain, more in control. They wanted to set policies in place that benefited them, maximizing their bottom line and seeing other lives as only a means to their end.
The emperor himself was constantly focused on threats to his power, and apparent rivals were attacked for their perceived lack of loyalty. The emperor needed people around him who had enormous amounts of money and connections, but he never trusted them. There were constant tests of loyalty, and any sense of questioning the emperor’s will put a person in immediate threat–so those who dreamed of more power questioned behind his back to position themselves for their chance to the throne. Others clamoured to have access to the emperor, thinking that somehow an association with him would give them the power and money they needed to advance their own agendas and ambitions. So, they sold their souls for proximity to perceived power, and because of that, they more often than not experienced that the half-life of happiness and satisfaction near him was very, very short.
The people as a whole were easily distracted by spectacles, with the ruling class finding ways to appease them with competitions and contrived contests between people, paying particular attention to certain minority groups who could be set up as scapegoats and paraded in front of the people in mock contests where they had to struggle for their lives.
While there had apparently never been more connections between populations of people, with technological advances that made communication easy, facilitating the further growth of the empire across vast distances, the people themselves were often pitted against one another, with some considering themselves purists or true blooded and feeling they had special status and prestige over others whose lives were seen as worth much less.
The poor, widows, and orphans were always at risk, and many others whose lives were deemed less valuable were tossed to the side or gathered up into areas to be out of sight and out of the way of what those so-called ‘in power’ deemed to be ‘progress’ and ‘advancement.’
And into this reality, a little over two thousand years ago, a young woman and her fiance, from a population of people deemed less worthy, in a war-torn border region of the perceived great Roman Empire, gave birth to a son whom she named Yeshua, Jesus. She gave him that name because the Archangel Gabriel told her to do so, because this child was the great Incarnation of the Creator of all things, the Source of life and the beating heart at the center of the universe. The Font of Life had now taken on flesh.
In a world where so many had their own idea of what power and importance was, this fragile child of a Jewish family tucked there on the edge of the Great Silk Road and the Roman Empire took his first breaths.
As St. Paul would describe some forty or fifty years later when he wrote to the Philippians about Jesus’s life:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
And, as we hear from the Book of Colossians, this Word of God, this Wisdom, this Hochma or Sophia of God, is the reality through whom all creation came into being.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
It is important to take advantage of a moment like this, when we are all gathered here to celebrate the Christ Mass, to remind ourselves just what has happened–and what is still happening in the Incarnation. As we say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In a time when we are confused, yet again and always, about what power is, about what is important, about where and in whom we should place our trust, we are called together so the Spirit can remind us just who truly is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
In the year 1223, Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone got permission from the pope to create a living nativity scene in a cave near where he lived. People heard about his work and brought hay, and there was even a donkey and an ox. This monk known as Francis brought a feeding trough, a manger, and placed it in the cave, and the first nativity scene was introduced as a way to help people experience the meaning of Jesus’s simple birth.
Francis felt led to do something to encourage the people to practice their faith more intentionally, given the enormous greed and corruption that was a hallmark of the culture at that time. He saw that the people had lost their way. The perceived great Roman Empire had given way a millennia before, but a new embodiment of corruption, distraction, power and greed had taken its place. As much as things change, they stay the same, it seems. Francis sought to find a way to remind people of the deep wisdom and teaching of the love of God that had become incarnate in the world–the love of God that becomes incarnate every moment of existence.
Francis prayed that he–and everyone–could experience the dynamic presence of Christ in such a way that their lives would be transformed. He prayed for a conversion of life that would set us all on a different course, a different path, than the one we so often seem to take. Francis understood what true power truly was, and he knew the only thing that led to a truly fulfilling life was to renounce the age-old patterns of grasping and greed, of the hollow pursuit of power.
Born into privilege himself, young Giovanni resisted his own family’s attempt to force him into a life they perceived as one proper for a young man of his status. In a famous moment in the piazza, Francis stripped in front of the city elders and returned the robes and accoutrement that his father deemed so important. He left naked and freed from the misled and shortsighted constraints and expectations of the society. The rest of his life would be marked by deep listening to the Spirit that blew through his soul with freedom, grace, and deep peace.
So now we find ourselves at our moment, yet again and always, to hear the message of the Christ Child, to feel that peculiar pressure of holiness within our own hearts. We feel the same pressures our kind have always felt, with the temptation to greed and ambition, distraction and that pressure for power that is always a failure of spiritual imagination. As the old prayer says, let us go again to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.
But perhaps the question remains of how we will know, of how we can discern the presence of Christ, of how we can discern the flowing life of the Spirit that blows through our lives. How can we tell what we should pay attention to?
The Spirit speaks to us, and our practice is always to listen intently enough that we can hear it, so that we can allow our hearts to be transformed by it and live more fully in the world. And, when it comes to this question of how we listen, of what that experience is like, I think the experience of the great American poet Ruth Stone offers us a vivid example. This account is from Elizabeth Gilbert’s fantastic book Big Magic. Gilbert writes:
One of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of this phenomenon–that is, of ideas entering and exiting the human consciousness at whim–came from the wonderful American poet Ruth Stone.
I met Stone when she was nearly ninety years old, and she regaled me with stories about her extraordinary creative process. She told me that when she was a child growing up on a farm in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields when she would sometimes hear a poem coming toward her–hear it rushing across the landscape at her, like a galloping horse. Whenever this happened, she knew exactly what she had to do next: She would ‘run like hell’ toward the house, trying to stay ahead of the poem, hoping to catch it. That way, when the poem reached her and passed through her, she would be able to grab it and take dictation, letting the words pour forth onto the page. Sometimes, however, she was too slow, and she couldn’t get to the paper and pencil in time. At those instances, she could feel the poem rushing right through her body and out the other side. It would be in her for a moment, seeking a response, and then it would be gone before she could grasp it–galloping away across the earth, as she said, ‘searching for another poet.’
But sometimes (and this is the wildest part) she would nearly miss the poem, but not quite. She would just barely catch it, she explained, ‘by the tail.’ Like grabbing a tiger. Then she would almost physically pull the poem back into her with one hand, even as she was taking dictation with the other. In these instances, the poem would appear on the page from the last word to the first–backward, but otherwise intact.
Gilbert says that this was some ‘freaky’ stuff, but that she believes it. I believe it, too. I believe the Spirit blows among us and within us, inviting us to reach out and take hold and be carried into another way of living that is not bound by the tired, old scripts of empire. We have heard that story before, that power and riches and prestige and spectacle are what are worth our time. That is a lie, and it has always been a lie. In the life of Jesus, in the Incarnation of the Creator of all, we see a truth that surpasses any boundary we set up or any ambition we fall prey to. In Jesus, the repeating lies of empire are laid bare and we are called to a conversion of life, yet again.
Yes, it is important to take advantage of a moment like this, when we are all gathered here to celebrate the Christ Mass, to remind ourselves just what has happened–and what is still happening in the Incarnation. As we say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In a time when we are confused, yet again and always, about what power is, about what is important, about where and in whom we should place our trust, we are called together so the Spirit can remind us just who truly is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Let us go again to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.