The reality of incarnation Reinbeck UMC 12/29/13

The reality of incarnation

Reinbeck UMC

12/29/13

As I walked through stores this year, I saw Christmas decorations of all kinds. Of course, there were the standard stars, angels, bells, Santa’s and others. Then there were Star Trek, Scooby Do, and smurfs. And even bud bottles, hoola girls and shot guns. There was one decoration that was obviously missing. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find a bucket of dirt. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find an ornament of a bucket of dirt. Of course, a real bucket of dirt would be even more appropriate. Not the kind of sterilized dirt that we get from a garden shop, but real, earthy, organic, rich, maybe even smelly dirt.

Why in the world, you might ask, was I looking for a bucket of dirt ornament? Because the bucket of dirt is the most appropriate ornament I could think of for the real meaning of Christmas which is incarnation.

Incarnation is the idea that the divinity of God took on flesh and became human in Jesus Christ. 100% God, 100% human. Customarily we don’t think of God as getting his hands dirty. He spoke creation into existence. God works through people, especially, kings and prophets. But the almighty God becoming fully human is almost incomprehensible. The God of the universe lowering himself to become one of us and get his hands dirty is just unfathomable.

Unfathomable but true.

The incarnation means that Jesus had to grow up just like everyone of us. As he grew, he experienced all the sorts of things that we experience. No doubt, there were other kids who played tricks on him. He probably skinned his knees playing the sorts of games that boys play. He no doubt banged his thumb with a hammer when he was helping his dad in the workshop. And as he got older we have recorded for us his experience of all the intensity of Satan’s temptations; far more intense than anything we experience, yet without failing the way we do. One of the things you discover as you read through the gospels is that Jesus was indeed 100% human.

Do you remember the incident when he stilled the storm? Do you remember what he was doing when the storm blew up? He was asleep in the back of the boat, wasn’t he? He’d been teaching the crowds all day and he was so tired he fell asleep on a hard bench at the back of the boat. Well, after Christmas I know just how he felt. 

And do you remember the way he occasionally expressed his frustration at the thickheaded responses of his disciples? Like when they’d just come down from the mountain of transfiguration and there’s a boy who his disciples can’t heal and what does he say? "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me." You can hear the frustration in his voice can’t you? He knew what it was like to be frustrated with the people he’d chosen to follow him. 

Christ’s humanity is clear as we read the gospels. That humanity is a reminder that Christmas is a dirty business. Incarnation is a filthy process.

In the dark of the night, a young girl screams in pain and fear. There is the smell of animals, wet hay, bodily fluids, and then the smell of a newborn baby. A new baby that does all the messy thing new babies do.

Christmas is a dirty business. Incarnation is a filthy process.

The baby would see sin and brokenness, temptation and resistance, sickness and pain.

Christmas is a dirty business. Incarnation is a filthy process.

The baby that came at Christmas would see disease and death, broken promises and persecution, broken hearts and crucifixion.

Christmas is a dirty business. Incarnation is a filthy process.

I can’t think of a better decoration to celebrate the incarnation than a plain old musty, real, grubby, crumbly, and perhaps a bit smelly, earthy bucket of dirt.

Our passage from Hebrews, however, gives us a little insight into the work of incarnation. Let’s see if its four images can help us to understand what God was trying to do in the incarnation. Those four images are: Pioneer, brother, liberator, and high priest.

First, the author of Hebrews uses the image of the incarnation as God providing a pioneer for us.

A pioneer is a groundbreaker.

Imagine an explorer cutting his or her way deep into the jungle. Nobody has ever been this way before; there are no paths, no trails, and no signs that say it’s possible to go this way. Yet they go on, forging a way through impossible terrain, until they reach the new land, the ocean, the other side of the continent, or whatever the goal was

Once the explorer has done that, others can follow. Explorers do that kind of thing for lots of reasons: fame, fortune, and sheer curiosity…whatever.

Jesus did it out of love!!! The jungle is the whole world of suffering, pain, sin, and death. Nobody had ever gone through there before and come out the other side. But wait a minute!!! Jesus did! In his incarnation, God faced suffering, pain, sin, and death. And he faced it with the same limitations we have as human beings because Jesus was really 100% human. And because of this, Jesus has opened the way for us to come out the other side as well!!!

Notice the title he’s given here, in v10. He’s the pioneer of our salvation. Later on, in ch12, Hebrews refer to him as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Jesus is the one who goes before us to show the way. He’s the one who blazes the trail, who clears away the obstacles so we can follow in his footsteps. And he does it as one of us. He can bring us to perfection because he is one of us. And so he brings us to the goal, God, as his brothers and sisters, children of the same flesh and the same heavenly father. 

The second image to help us understand the incarnation in Hebrews 2 is to think of Jesus as our brother. Verse 11 says, “¹¹For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,.”

Isn’t that cool? We could also say, that the one who saves, and those who are saved are of the same family. We sing, "I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God,

Families are funny things. We are all probably keenly aware of that as we move through the family celebrations of these holidays. Families are wonderful things, but let’s just say every human family tree has some sap in it?

But this family of God of which we are a part is different. Hebrews says Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. As much as I love my brother there have been times through the years that each of us has had his turn at not really wanting to claim the other. Jesus, however, has no trouble claiming us. No matter what he looks out for us.

This incarnation means that Jesus is part of our human family. And because of that, we can be part of God’s family.

The third image in this passage from Hebrews comes from verses 14-16

^“14Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. ¹⁶ For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. “

The key there is to “Free” those who were held in “slavery.” Slavery to what? Sin.

This third image reminds us that God didn’t become incarnate just for the fun of it. He didn’t do it because Christmas would be a neat holiday. He didn’t do it for any reason but to set us free from sin. God loves us so much that he came to emancipate us from slavery to sin. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”… that is not just giving him in death but giving him in life. Giving him in incarnation to suffer the struggle with sin and death.

The human condition is that we are subject to sin. We are subject to temptation. We are born in sin and we die in sin. There is no way around that. EXCEPT. Except that God sent Jesus to free us from sin a death. By his death on the cross and resurrection (Which would mean nothing if it weren’t for the incarnation -- if it weren’t for the fact that he himself became subject to sin and death by becoming one of us) By his incarnation, perfectly sinless life, death and resurrection we are set free… healed of this disease we call sin…and offered eternal life with him. We are no longer bound by the chains of death, but are gifted with life beyond anything we can imagine here and now. A life that has an eternal quality- not just having no end, but having a quality that we can’t even imagine in our finite universe of sin and death.

Jesus is our liberator, our savior.

Finally, Hebrews uses one more image. Jesus as the high priest. Verses 17 and 18 say,

“¹⁷Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

He had to become like us… in every respect. He had to face sin. He had to face temptation. He had to face fear. He had to face trials. He had to face sickness. He had to face death in order to be one of us in every respect. Why?

Well, we have to understand the role of the High priest. The high priest was appointed to stand in the place of the people. He represented the people before the almighty God…especially on the Day of Atonement.

Atonement, spelled at-one-ment, is the day when the sins of the people were brought before God to be forgiven so that they could be “at one” with God again. All those things that separated the people from God... All those sins that drove a wedge between the people and God would be offered up for forgiveness. Actually, the process included a goat, called a scapegoat, on whom all the sins would be placed and then he would be driven into the wilderness and off a cliff.

The High Priest, therefore, had to have a sympathetic understanding of the nature of the struggles and sins of the people in order to place all of the sins on the back of the scapegoat. So that as Hebrews says he could be “merciful and faithful.”

Of course to drive the imagery to its logical conclusion, Jesus is not only the perfect high priest, he is himself the perfect Lamb of God, or scapegoat sacrificed for the sins of the whole world.

By the incarnation, he knows exactly what we are experiencing. He knows exactly how hard temptation is. He knows exactly what a struggle sin is. He knows exactly what it is like to be human because he is 100% human as well as 100% God. Making him the perfect high priest.

To celebrate the incarnation is messy business. It helps us to understand Jesus as the pioneer forging a way for us in the jungle where we have never been before.

It helps to understand Jesus as a brother willing to claim us as his own, love us, and accept us as family.

It helps us to understand incarnation if we think of it as Jesus as our freedom fighter coming to free us from sin and death.

It helps to think of Jesus as our perfect high priest. Taking away the sins of the world on his own back to the cross and the grave.

But incarnation is still dirty work. It has to do with sin and death. It has to do with disease and destruction. It has to do with the almighty God taking on skin and moving into the sin slum we have created here on earth so that he can move us out into a new hope and a new home in God.

Incarnation is dirty, but because of that first dirty Christmas, there is a reason to smile, to brush aside the tears and sing a Christmas carol!

Because of that first dirty Christmas, there is reason to live, to push back the things that rob us of life and live in Jesus Christ.

Because of that first dirty Christmas, there is reason to celebrate- to celebrate that God has come to be our pioneer, our brother, our savior, and our high priest.

But let us never forget that Jesus was born in a smelly, dirty barn in Bethlehem, next to the animals into a world of sin and guilt and pain and death. Let us never forget that God wasn’t afraid to get dirty for us and for our salvation. So when we go home and see out beautiful Christmas tree in all its glory, let’s remember the dirt!

Who knows?

You might even want to put a pail of dirt under your tree to remind yourself why that Christmas tree is so gloriously decorated at all!!!