Can You See the Incarnation?

These passages and questions are what our small group worked with this morning. Can you see the Incarnation in these passages? 

Can you see the Incarnation in your life?

Your marriage?

Your church?

The professing-church in our country?

Let’s please consider John 14:16 – 15:11 along with Ephesians 2:19 – 22.

 What do we see about the Incarnation in these passages?

What should the Incarnation look like today in our lives?

In our families?

In our churches?

Please try to be specific by thinking of at least two examples for ourselves, our families, and our churches – if you are married, please consider at least one example of what the Incarnation should look like in your marriage.

In pondering the Incarnation in your own life, please identify one area of your life in which there is a disconnect between what the Incarnation ought to look like compared to what it actually looks like – and then let’s please pray for one another in regard to these areas.

Are We Teaching the Difference?

In Ezekiel 22:23 – 31 Yahweh speaks to Ezekiel concerning the sin of Judah, with a special focus on its priests, prophets, and princes. In verse 26 we read:

“Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”

I think, that to hide our eyes from God’s sabbaths is to hide our eyes from Jesus Christ, for He is our Sabbath, and within that Great Sabbath (Jesus Christ) are found all of God’s sabbaths. Christ is our Great Rest (see Hebrews Chapter 4), in Him we cease from our own works of righteousness (which are as filthy rags, Isaiah 64:6) and learn that without Christ we can do nothing (John 15:1 – 5).

No doubt there are myriad ways to do violence to God’s law, but since the context of this passage focuses on the holy and the profane, is it not true that when we use God’s law for our own ends, to manipulate others to gain what we want – such as always bigger churches, always larger offerings, always a wider religious market for our ministerial wares, always more popularity – that we have done violence to God’s law? Is it not true that when we use God’s law as a facade to preach and teach our own agendas, to cater to what is “trending” and “trendy”, that we have done violence to His law?

Is it not true that when we twist the Scriptures to accommodate the world, the flesh, and the devil that we have done violence to the law of God? Have I done this? O God search my heart and reveal the sin and impurities in me; please forgive me in Christ Jesus.

Then we come to the sin of the priests in not teaching the difference between the holy and profane, between the unclean and the clean (a chiasm). Did the priests lead the people astray, or did the people lead the priest astray? Both sinned, but who has the greater sin? Of course the priests, the prophets, the princes – their sin is from the depths of the abyss – all sin is hideous, the sin of those who are to serve and teach others, who are to especially hallow the Law of God and the Person of Christ, is particularly evil (if we can use such comparative language).

And yet when we come to Ezekiel Chapter 44, we see that not all priests abandoned their holy calling:

“But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood, declares the Lord Yahweh…Moreover they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean [a chiasm].”

Can we hear Paul saying to the Corinthians, “…what agreement has the temple of God with idols?...do not touch what is unclean…let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1)?

Can we receive Peter’s words, “…like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:13 – 16)?

Where are the priests of Zadok today? Where are those pastors and teachers and elders who are teaching God’s People the difference between the holy and the profane, the unclean and the clean?

The name Zadok is derived from a Hebrew word that means “right, just, righteousness” among other nuances. We see the Messiah, the Christ, in the High Priest Zadok and his faithful descendants. “Your throne O God, is forever and ever, a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness…” (Psalm 45). We see this enfolded in the priesthood of Melchizedek, “king of righteousness.”

As there is only One Sabbath, the is only One King of Righteousness – our Lord Jesus Christ; there is only One Faithful Priest. All other sabbaths, all other servant-leaders of righteousness, all other faithful priests…are found within our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no rest, no righteousness, no faithful priesthood – outside of Jesus Christ.

But how to teach God’s People the difference between the holy and the profane, the unclean and the clean? How to do this when syncretism has not so much invaded, but rather been invited, into the Temple, into the Church, into the People of God?

How to teach the difference between the holy and the sinful when our society and our lives are permeated with the unclean and the world, the flesh, and the devil? How to do this when our methods are not those of God but of the world? When our epistemology and pedagogy is not of the Word of God but of the world?

Peter says that we ought to “sanctity Christ as Lord in your hearts” (1 Peter 3:15). The context of these words contains suffering, righteousness, and witness to the Gospel. How can we do any of these things unless Christ is the center of our very existence? As we sanctify Christ perhaps we begin to discern the holy and the profane, the unclean and the clean.

How can we sanctify Christ when we sanctify popularity, money, prestige, power, recognition, pleasure, comfort, avoidance of persecution, sensuality, entertainment, departure from the Word of God…?

Where are the Zadoks of our day?

Are we teaching the difference between the holy and the profane? Or have we given up?

Incarnation

What does the Incarnation look like in my life? In your life? In the life of our churches?

The Shepherds

We’re not told how many shepherds received the angelic proclamation of the Messiah’s birth (Luke Chapter 2).

Perhaps one of the shepherds was the father or grandfather of a newborn baby boy. If so, what was that man thinking, what was he feeling, when within the space of two years Herod’s minions arrived in Bethlehem to slaughter his son or grandson?

Perhaps another shepherd told his rabbi about the angelic visitation and about his own visit to Bethlehem to see the Child. What did the rabbi say? Did the rabbi suggest it was a hallucination? Did the rabbi say that since none of the religious leaders in Jerusalem were aware of such a thing that it must not be true? Did the rabbi convince the shepherd to forget about that night?

Perhaps there were shepherds who, like Mary, pondered these things and treasured them in their hearts – but for how long? When the Roman oppression continued did the wonder of that night fade away? As the pressures and uncertainties of life remained did hope deteriorate?

Would some of these shepherds encounter Jesus in years to come, and if so, would they make the connection? When they heard of Jesus in years to come, what would they think?

What about us? When Christ appears, when God speaks, how do we respond?

Paul “was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19) – what about me? What about you?

Has the babe in the feeding trough grown to be a Man in our souls?

Candlesticks

Would we even know it if Christ removed candlesticks? (Revelation 2:5).

Nativity

Nativity
John Donne, 1572 - 1631

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

He Came To His Own

“He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” John 1:11.

I suppose when we read this that we think of Jesus coming to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and being rejected by them. That is certainly the immediate historical context. We wonder how the very people who were looking for the Messiah rejected the very Messiah they were looking for.

Perhaps Paul gives us a clue when he writes concerning his kinsmen, “For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:2 – 4).

The majority of Jews who encountered Jesus failed to recognize Jesus as the Christ because they did not “subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” The Gospel of John portrays this over and over, the Jews clung to their self-righteousness and in doing so attacked Jesus Christ (John 8:12 – 59).

But what about us who call ourselves Christians? Do we recognize Jesus when He comes to us? Or, like the Jews of two thousand years ago, are we so caught up in our traditions, in our political and economic and social agendas – that we cannot recognize Jesus?

Do we not use Jesus to advance our wants, desires, and agendas? Do we not form Jesus into our own image, just as the Jews created an image of a Messiah? No doubt the Pharisees, had one image; the Sadducees another; the Essenes another, and the Zealots yet another. Have we not traduced the image of Jesus into multiple caricatures – each designed to justify ourselves and our agendas?

Can it not be written of us today, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not”?