Forgetting the Incarnation

Christmas is the time of year when we think about and focus on the incarnation.  But one of the dangers is that in doing so at Christmas we only ever teach about it in ways that focus on calling people to follow Jesus rather than the implications for our discipleship.  It is right that we make the most of the wonderful opportunity Christmas brings with it's nativity and carol services and ready and willing visitors.  But do we forget the lesson of the incarnation the rest of the year?

How did God show his love among us?  1 John 4v9 "In this was the love of God made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him."  God shows his love by sending Jesus who comes into the world, becoming God incarnate, Immanuel, God with us.  Love sees Jesus leave all the splendour and glory of heaven, not grasping at what was his by right, what he deserved, but laying it aside to become a man.

What does the incarnation teach us?  Many things but chief among them must be that love lives alongside of, amongst, amidst those it seeks to love.  Just think about the way we parent, we show love not from a distance but by living alongside, amidst, our children in the family.  What about church?  What about in our communities?  I can't help but think that we are losing something of the incarnation aspect of love when we don't live in the communities we seek to reach.  I can speak from experience about the value of living in the community you are trying to reach, sending your children to local schools, being at the school gate, living life in the neighbourhood.

Yet there are a number of trends that worry me.  Why do we talk about the need for professional distance?  Teachers are advised not to get jobs at the school they live near.  Doctors don't tend to live in the community their GP practice serves.  Even pastors are sometimes living outside of the communities their churches are serving.  Certainly many church members live at a distance from their churches.  If one of the ways we show love is by being alongside of, amongst, in the midst of those we want to see reached with the gospel why is this happening?

This Christmas we need to preach the love shown by the incarnation but we also need to sit and meditate on the lessons it calls us to learn about how we love those we want to reach with the gospel. What will it mean for us to be God's love incarnate?

Father forgive my limited love for others

I was reading 1 Corinthians 13 again this morning, and yet again I'm struck by the utter contrast between the love God calls us to have for one another in the church and the way the world loves.  But it is easy to deflect a passage away from ourselves and onto others.  It is right that we apply a passage to the world, looking at how far short the world falls of God's purpose and plan even as it thirsts and hungers for what God intended it to enjoy.  But it is never enough to stop there, in fact it is wrong to do so if we never turn the convicting light of God's word onto ourselves.

God calls us to love but that is something we find hard to do.  We have a tendency to love by common denominator, to love those who are like us, share or views, who we feel are of benefit to us, who love us in return, or who we aspire to be like.  But the Bible calls us to love as God loved us in Christ.  To love those who are unlike us, to love the different and the random.  But all too often I find it easier to go for the liquid love that mirrors the world, that is easily washed away by pressure, or tiredness, or stress, or simply someone doing something I don't like.  But God's call is to a love that pursues, that perseveres, that is patient and so much more.

Longsuffering is the way older translations often translate that word patient and I think there is something beautiful about that word, it is descriptive, it speaks of bearing with, it speaks of pain and difficulty, it speaks of long term commitment, it speaks of enduring love not liquid love, a love built on solid foundations not sandy ones.  As I read of God's love I can't help but be amazed and thankful and humbled.  As I see the call to love like that I can't help but throw myself on the mercy of God because I cannot do it, but as I do so I am amazed again that God not only calls me to love like that but fills me with his Spirit so that I love like that.  So that I fight the battle with liquid love and seek to love as I have been loved.

Our faulty view of God

Spent most of today studying Ruth - it is a great book and one I'm looking forward to learning from as we go through it on Sunday evenings at Lighthouse.

One thing in particular struck me today as I focused on Chapter 1 - the faulty nature of Naomi's understanding of God. I had never really noticed it before, quite how I'm not sure. But she lurches from praying that her daughters-in-law as she urges them to leave her would know and experience the ('hesed') unwavering, steadfast loyal love of God, to in the same exhortation (v13)saying God has been against her. A charge that she reiterates when she gets back to Bethlehem and tells them to call her 'Mara' (bitter) not Naomi (pleasant) because the Almighty has made my life very bitter, he has brought her back empty and he has afflicted and brought misfortune on her.

Added to all that as she seeks to send them back to Moab it is not just to the people but to their gods. Naomi's view of God is confused and is not grounded in the law (Gen-Deut) and its revelation of God and his character. It is amazing that Ruth woudl want to ally herself with the God of Naomi.

Her circumstances had made her bitter, her circumstances had determined her view of God. The question is which is right is God 'hesed' steadfastly faithful beyond what people deserve or is he responsible for her bitterness, has he left her bereft and without hope. The great irony is that as she describes herself as empty, beside her stands Ruth who has made Naomi's people and God hers and will be the means through which God provides and shows his hesed love for her.

It is striking because I think so often we are like Naomi - circumstances determined how we view and feel about God rather than how we view God determining how we feel about our circumstances.

Another facet I'd not thought about before is that Naomi is part of the lost generations following on from Judges 2:10 "After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel." I wonder if that is why her understanding of God seems so faulty, if that is what prompted the family to flee to Moab?

Does God love us?

That is the question behind so many of our questions. It is at root why we ask why me when it comes to suffering, or where was God on... The question behind it is was God loving me at that point when that happened.

Studying Malachi opens up that whole question as God says to Israel "I have loved you" and they look at their circumstances and say we don't see any evidence of that. Its exactly what we do - we know in our heads that God loves us because of his actions in salvation history and also because his word tells us. But all too often we allow circumstances to overrule that and overawe us so that we end up asking does God love me. What is the antidote -a healthy dose of Malachi which reminds us of God's love in action in salvation history and in Christ and the future that is in store for his people.