Thursday, January 1, 2015

Christmas 2014: the Incarnation and the Body

[I sent this blog out early in December but am just getting it posted here.  Happy New Year!]

I think that Christmas gets better with age!  Not the Santa part, but my appreciation of the depth of the beautiful gift of God in Jesus.  I am struck this year by the implications of the mysterious miracle that God chose to be resident in flesh and blood, like our own. 

As the SRP staff, we’ve been reflecting on the very physical aspect of Christ’s incarnation and the good news that God came to dwell with us, in human form… and our need to experience value and healing in how we relate to our own bodies.   I think about our own stories and those who come to us for help.  Consider…      

·        The teenager who cuts, mutilating her body, in the hopes of expressing and releasing her pain. 

·        The sex addict who, seeking intimacy, becomes more disconnected relationally and increasingly at odds with the good of his sexuality. 

·        The sexual abuse victim whose body was violated, and how she carries this pain in her body and mind.     

·        The man who overeats and misuses food, coping with emotional pain, and developing a myriad of health issues.

·        The woman who compares her body to the airbrushed media version and disdains herself.

·        The person who is preoccupied with social media and internet relating, lacking face-to-face contact and the accompanying eye contact, hugs and hands to hold.
Listening for and responding to the real needs of the body brings healing.  After all, God created the body as good and desires to restore wholeness.  Religions too often teach their followers to disdain the body.  The incarnation of Jesus does just the opposite; Christ’s coming underscores the sacredness of the human body.  In Jesus’ coming as a human being, God Himself inhabits the bodily human experience.  Awe inspiring!  We hear echoes of the declaration made in the creation story that, “It is good!” 

Jesus does not save us from our humanity; He saves us from our sin.  And He saves us so that we can be fully human.  Not only does God shout out that the human person is His most prized creation, He goes even further to say that the body is now His temple, His sacred dwelling place.   

This Christmas we celebrate, with wonder and awe, God’s incarnation.  We celebrate this joyously in one of my favorite Christmas hymns, Hark the Herald Angels Sing:      

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail, the incarnate deity,
Pleased as Man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King
.

Indeed the newborn King is glorious, and He ushers in the era of God-with-us, in our flesh.  At SRP, we participate in the tender and compassionate ministry of Jesus, listening deeply to the heart, soul and body to bring healing to the person and their relationships. 
I hope that this year as you celebrate Jesus’ birth, you experience how much God loves you… in the flesh, 


Catherine  

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