Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Word Becomes Flesh

Hi Everyone-

Merry Christmas!!  I pray your day is blessed with every good thing.  Today I am incredibly thankful for the Word becoming flesh.  To steal from Rob Bell's recent farewell sermon ... There is a movement in the Bible of word becoming flesh.  Jesus is referred to as the Word and Him becoming human is the most blatant manifestation of this trend, but there's even more to it...

In the Old Testament, we are commanded not to murder.  Not killing each other is pretty basic, but the command comes in the form of words.  Later, Jesus tells us to love our enemies.  This is taking it to the next level, don't just stop killing each other, love everyone.  It's still words though.  Yet, then Jesus puts flesh on this.  He lives this truth, and in doing so word becomes flesh.  Jesus dies on the cross for everyone, while we're still his enemies.  If that's not living out loving one's enemies I don't know what is! 

The thing is, though, we have this tendency to try and move flesh back to words.  I know at times I'm all about talking of and talking up my beliefs much more than living them out.  I can be all bark and no bite.  Words are all bark and no bite, but flesh is something much more ... Flesh is life.  It's Jesus living as a human and transforming us.  It's us living this transformation out and changing each other.


Today this is one of the most important parts of Christmas and the Word becoming flesh to me, but there's one more thing I'd like to mention.  The very act of the Divine becoming human brings salvation.  Christmas brings salvation.  This is usually a conversation reserved for Easter, but Jesus' life transforms and saves us every bit as much as His death and resurrection.  Jesus united Divine and human and that union brought healing and redemption to humanity. 

In other words, Christmas saved us ... thank you Jesus.   We love you.  Happy Birthday!!
 
Grace and peace,
Lang

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