Word became flesh
This summer I took a course on the Jewish Roots of the Christian faith. It was SO enlightening. I can’t tell you how much I learned. I am sharing bits and pieces with my students daily. This week I am discussing the Incarnation with my students. I asked them why flesh? Why did God take on a human form and come to this earth as Jesus Christ?
They know the overall reason was for our salvation. I have been discussing what the Old Testament was all about. It was about people wanting to believe but having trouble staying focused on one God. They would worship Yahweh and then walk away and worship other gods, then they would find themselves separated from God which caused disorder, destruction and suffering. So, they would cry out to God for help. God would send a prophet and they would start to listen and go down the right path until their eyes and thoughts would start to wander once again. It was a terrible pattern.
Then God in all his infinite wisdom sent Jesus Christ flesh of our flesh but spirit of God to lead us. Jesus was not the Messiah that the Jewish people longed for in their culture. They expected a king, a military hero, a person of stature, wealth and knowledge. They did not expect the son of a carpenter. But that son was able to flip the culture of the time. God became man to lead by example, to cry the same tears, to be angry, to feel human emotion and to show us how to love his father. Jesus Christ showed us complete and undying love and forgiveness. He challenged the culture to flip the societal norms and still calls to us today to challenge our cultural norms.
The Incarnation is the reason the entire universe was created. All of creation pointed towards Jesus Christ. It still points towards Jesus Christ. It’s just difficult to see that because we lose focus constantly. We are beyond blessed that God cared so much that He sent his only son and allowed him to be brutally murdered for our sins, that we may one day join him in paradise.
…and the question remains, who are the true prophets that God is sending us today to call us back to Him? Are we listening, discerning, returning??? What have we, are we learning from the past to be faithful in the present??? or are we still wandering in the desert!