Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6; John 1:14; Hebrews 1:3
May 19, 2013
Pentecost Sunday!
Packing the Essentials, Part 4
Rev. Dr. Meagan M. Boozer
“Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
“He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,
and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins,
he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Hebrews 1:3
It’s one thing to talk on the phone to a friend in need. It’s quite another thing to travel to your
friend to be with them in their need. It’s one thing for God to tell us how much he loves us in his
written Word. It’s quite another thing to show us his love in the Word made flesh – Jesus Christ.
Today we are focusing on Essential Tenet #3: The Incarnation. Long ago a pastor-friend of
mine entitled a Christmas sermon, “God in a Bod.” That’s what incarnation is about: God coming to
earth in human flesh: “God in a Bod.” Immanuel: God is with us. “God in a Bod.”
Throughout the centuries there have been untold numbers of arguments about whether Jesus
was really 100% God and really 100% human at the same time. I mean, how can this be? How can
you be 100% two natures – human and divine? Scientifically it makes no sense. Intellectually we
cannot understand it – just like we cannot understand one God in three persons – Essential Tenet #2:
The Trinity. That’s why we use the word mystery, a holy mystery, when we talk about the Trinity
and when we talk about Incarnation. These are the two great mysteries of the Christian faith.
I want to read the first paragraph from ECO’s Theology Project about Incarnation, but first I
want to help us understand the word ‘begotten’ because we’ve seen that word quite a few times over
the last several weeks. Begotten arises from a Greek word monogenes which can be understood as
"pertaining to being the only one of its kind within a specific relationship – unique in kind.” I think C.S.
Lewis explains it beautifully in his book Mere Christianity:
We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows
what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this.
When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a
beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you
make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man
makes a wireless set—or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If
he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is
not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man.
What God creates is not God, just as what man creates is not man. [Which is why the Buddhist or New
Age belief that everything is god (including ourselves) is unbiblical. God is our creator. He did not
begat us, he created us – therefore we are not gods. We are his treasured creation. Jesus alone is
very God of very God.]
Now let’s take a look at ECO’s 1st paragraph regarding Incarnation: This is the second great
mystery of the Christian faith, affirmed by all Christians everywhere: that Jesus Christ is both
truly God and truly human. As to His divinity, He is the Son, the second person of the
Trinity, being of one substance with the Father; as to His humanity, He is like us in every way
but sin, of one substance with us, like us in having both a human soul and a human body. As to
His divinity, He is eternally begotten of the Father; as to His humanity, He is born of the virgin
Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit. As to His divinity, His glory fills heaven and earth; as to His
humanity, His glory is shown in the form of a suffering servant, most clearly when He is lifted
up on the cross in our place.
If Jesus is not fully divine, if he had merely been the first of God’s created beings, then we are
trusting our salvation to a creature who ultimately cannot cancel our sin, who cannot satisfy the
Father’s wrath against our sin, who cannot give us a perfect righteousness (because perfection lies
only in the nature of God) then we are still slaves to our sin and not welcome in heaven. It’s that big
of a deal. But Jesus is fully divine! Scripture tells us that he is the reflection of God’s glory – the exact
imprint of God’s very being. He is Immanuel: God With Us! He is “God in a Bod!”
But what if he isn’t fully human? What’s the big deal about that? In the Westminster Shorter
Catechism we read, “It was necessary that the Mediator (Jesus) should be man; that he might advance
our nature, perform obedience to the law, suffer and make intercession for us in our nature, have a
fellow feeling of our infirmities; that we might receive the adoption of sons, and have comfort and access
with boldness unto the throne of grace.” God required a perfect sacrifice for sin – and Jesus alone (God
himself) became that perfect sacrifice. He was like us in every way except he was without sin. He had
physical needs: he was hungry and thirsty, he grew tired and needed to sleep, and he felt pain. He
had human emotions: he rejoiced, he wept, he got angry, and he was tempted as we are. He had a
real body that miraculously began in a virgin’s womb, was delivered into this world just as we were,
he grew up like any other child, and became a grown man who suffered, bled, died, and was buried as
we will be one day. In Colossians 1:19 we read, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by
making peace through the blood of his cross.”
It’s one thing to talk on the phone to a friend in need. It’s quite another thing to travel to your
friend to be with them in their need.
Lee Eclov tells the following story: “People came early one Christmas Eve for the 11:00 pm
service at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. Among them was a recovering
alcoholic, six months sober, who slipped into the eleventh row. This was his first Christmas since
having lost his family. A family of four sat down two rows in front of him. Seeing this family together
was crushing. He decided he couldn’t handle it — he had to have a drink. As he moved from the
sanctuary to the narthex, he ran into Pastor Thomas Tewell. ‘Jim, where are you going?’ the pastor
asked. ‘Oh, I’m just going out for a Scotch,’ Jim replied. ‘Jim, you can’t do that,’ the pastor responded.
He knew that Jim was a recovering alcoholic. ‘Is your sponsor available?’ Jim replied, ‘It’s Christmas
Eve. My sponsor is in Minnesota. There’s nobody who can help me. I just came tonight for a word of
hope, and I ended up sitting behind this family and I thought that if I had my life together, I’d be here
with my wife and kids too. Pastor Tewell took Jim into the vestry to talk with a couple of other
pastors. Then he slipped into the auditorium, having no idea what to do. He whispered a prayer: ‘O
God, could you give me a word of hope for Jim?’
He welcomed everyone and made a few announcements. Then he said, ‘I have one final
announcement. If anyone here tonight is a friend of Bill Wilson — and if you are, you’ll know it —
could you step out for a moment and meet me in the vestry?’ Bill Wilson, better known as Bill W.,
was a cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. From all over the sanctuary, women, men, and college
students arose and made their way out. ‘And there while I was preaching in the sanctuary about
incarnation,’ said Pastor Tewell, ‘the Word was becoming flesh in the vestry. Someone was
experiencing hope.’” Jim experienced the friendship of Jesus Christ through God’s people who had
been claimed and changed by him and in whom he lived through the Holy Spirit.
Essential Tenet #3 – the Incarnation – is a mystery, yes. But it is absolutely essential,
necessary, indispensable, and fundamental to our faith. This is why we sing, “What a Friend we have
in Jesus,” or “Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul,” or “I’m coming back to the heart of worship,
and it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus!” God himself, the immortal, invisible one God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit – distinct yet not divided – the creator of all things visible and invisible humbled
himself and became human. And he did it so that we wouldn’t just hope to maybe know God one day,
but so that we can know God today; he came so that we wouldn’t live in fear of death, but that we
would live in faith that death is the doorway to our true home in heaven with God.
After Jesus was resurrected from the dead, after he showed himself to over 500 people and
ministered comfort and confidence to his confused yet courageous disciples, he ascended into
heaven. Then Jesus, fully human and still fully divine sat down at the right hand of the Father and
then fulfilled his promise to not leave us comfortless. In John 14:15-18 he said, “If you love me, you
will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Helper,
Counselor), to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will
not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”
The Holy Spirit of God is still “God in a Bod” because though the Holy Spirit mysteriously
blows independent of you and me to seek and save the lost, drawing us to God, the Holy Spirit also
mysteriously dwells in our bodies - in the physical bodies of Christ’s followers: “God in a bod” to
teach you, to comfort you, to guide you, to convict you, to draw you ever closer to your Heavenly
Father in praise, in prayer, in service, in worship. Apart from Jesus coming to earth, fully human and
fully divine, the Holy Spirit’s work in us is unknowable and empty of eternal purpose.
Oh, how we need Jesus! And God knew our need because he saw it way back in the Garden of
Eden when we hid from him because of our shame. Oh, how we need the Holy Spirit who alone
enables us to confess Jesus as Savior and Lord! (1 Corinthians 12:3, “Therefore I want you to
understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say
“Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.”)
As we come to the Communion Meal on this Day of Pentecost I want us to remember three
things:
1.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one in nature and in purpose.
That very nature and that very purpose is love.
2.
Jesus came, fully human and fully divine, to reflect and enact God’s love through his life,
death, resurrection, and ascension into the glory of heaven.
3.
The Holy Spirit came to open our eyes and to open our hearts to receive God’s love offered
fully and freely to men and women and boys and girls from all nations and from all
generations no matter how far from God you’ve been, no matter how many
commandments you have broken, no matter how many times you promised to follow him
and how many times you failed to keep your promises. His arms are open to you and to
me. Do not resist the call of God; do not resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit to draw
near to God; to not reject God’s love given to you in Jesus Christ!
What a gift we have been given in the Incarnation: Essential Tenet of the Reformed Faith #3. Oh, how
essential it is! Speak these words with me from Galatians 2:20 that we simply could not say apart
from the Incarnation of Christ:
“It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me!” Amen.