What We Believe - Part 6
“I Believe in Jesus Christ...Conceived...Born”
“How Human Is Your God?”
Text:
Thesis:
Philippians 2:5-11 and Luke 1:26-38
Jesus of Nazareth as fully human and fully God interrupted the history of
humanity to bring in the kingdom of God – a new way of being for all
creation. Christ became one of us so we could be one with him.
Back in 1987 an exhibit opened at the Boston Museum of Science – “Robots and
Beyond.” It was described as a “futuristic carnival” with more than 35 displays of the
latest in machines that act like people. The most fascinating “robot” was a clear
plastic manikin with artificial “skin.” This skin was actually a special film that
transformed physical pressure into electrical impulses. We see this technology with
our many touch screens today. But back then when a visitor touched the robot’s skin
electrical signals would activate a computer voice system. The computer was able to
interpret different types of touch. If you squeezed with gentle pressure = “Oooh, I can
feel that.” But a rapid tap/tap/tap yielded – “Hey! Cut it out! What are you, a
woodpecker?” [Time, Feb 9, 1987, p.78] Of course, the manikin can’t really feel
anything. No matter how it looks on the outside, inside it’s nothing but electrical
currents, wires, plastic, and a computerized voice. There’s not a drop of blood in it.
No matter what it says, it is incapable of feeling love or fear – it can’t comprehend joy
or pain. Even with all the technological advances, IBM may create artificial
intelligence that can defeat human beings at Jeopardy, but it still cannot feel human
emotion.
To hear some folks talk about Jesus, you might get the impression that he is like those
fascinating robots – a perfectly coordinated machine that looked and acted like a
human being – but without feeling human pain or passion or joy. God is described as
the “ground of all being,” “unchanged and unchanging,” the “unmoved mover,” and
there is truth in these descriptions. So how could Jesus, if he is fully human, also be
fully God? So, from the earliest discussions in the church, some Christians saw
Jesus as only partly human – having only a human body. But the amazing claim of
the Christian gospel is that the eternal God – the God of creation – the source of all
being – is also the God who has become one of us in Jesus.
The affirmation that Jesus is fully human/fully divine is a critical Christian belief. It
was finally settled by the church in 451 AD with the Nicene Creed: “We believe...in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God of
God, Light of Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, of one being with
the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came
down from heaven; was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became
truly human.” The Apostles’ Creed states this belief more indirectly with words that
graphically describe the human experience. Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit”
and “born of the Virgin Mary.”
In the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal God has felt our pain, shared our
joy, experienced our sorrow, felt our temptations, entered into our suffering, and gone
with us to death. This Jesus is “Immanuel,” God with us, the eternal God who
became a mortal man. Last week our focus was more on the divinity of Jesus Christ.
But what does it mean to us that he is fully human/fully divine?
First of all, it means that through Jesus we can know something about God. In Jesus,
we have heard the voice of the infinite One. In Jesus, we have seen the personality
of the divine being. The letter to the Hebrews puts it this way – [paraphrase, 1:1-3]
God has communicated his divine purpose and character in bits and pieces through
the prophets. Now, God has spoken through a Son. Jesus bears the imprint of the
nature of God.
Several years ago Brendon Gill, a New York theater critic had an article in The New
Yorker magazine. He was lamenting that all Broadway musicals are now miked and
amplified. In most of the big old theaters, actors had easily spoken and sung without
a sound system for half a century. Now audiences had no choice but to listen to what
he called “a totally phony sound.” He complained that “the human voice is never
heard in its ordinary resonance.” [from James Harnish sermon, Believe in Me, p.45] By
comparison, I remember being part of the massed choir that sang for Pittsburgh
Presbytery’s bicentennial celebration. We had 500+ voices – most of them trained
and without amplification One piece was without accompaniment. The naked power
of these human voices was so real, so genuine. Not only did you hear it with your
ears, you also felt it in your gut – in your soul.
The gospel is the story of the God who was not satisfied to speak through artificial
means – through messengers in fragmentary and partial ways. The day came when
God’s voice was heard directly in all its power through: the cry of a baby as it burst
from Mary’s womb; the laughter of friendship along the seashore; the weeping beside
the grave of a friend; the cry of agony at the hour of death. God has spoken through
the power of human experience. Through Jesus we know who God is, more fully than
every before, because we know about birth and friendship and grief and death. When
we read scripture and through the Holy Spirit come to know Jesus, we are also getting
to know God.
But, if Jesus is fully human and fully divine, it also means that God knows directly who
we are. The story is told about Charlie Chaplin – the silent film star who was also a
director. In 1950 he directed a play at the Circle Theater in Hollywood. During one
of the rehearsals he became very frustrated with the actors on stage. To everyone’s
surprise, he jumped up on stage, pushed one of the actors out of a chair and sat down
himself. “Excuse me please, I want to sit here for a while. I need to see how it
feels.” [Harnish, p. 46] Our reading from Philippians describes how God jumped
down onto the earthly stage. The NLT puts it this way – “God gave up his divine
privileges; God took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.”
(V.8)
God is not some distant, divine robot. In the human Jesus, God stepped onto the
stage of human history – sat down among us and found out exactly how it feels. We
may question how God put the universe together. Why is there hurt and
disappointment? Why is there pain and suffering? Why is there tragedy and evil?
But one thing we must say about God...God was willing to experience this life the
same way that we experience it. God was willing to play by the same rules we do.
Jesus was conceived and born, even suffered and died.
It is good news that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine. Through him, we
know God and God knows us. God goes with us and knows what we’re feeling in good
times and bad. But, if that’s all it means, I’m not sure the message is complete. The
good news is complete when we realize that in the fully human, fully divine, Jesus
something radically new happened. No one else has been “conceived by the Holy
Spirit.” No one else has been born of a virgin. All humanity has descended through
human parents until Jesus of Nazareth.
This is the turning point in human history. This is God’s own interruption. Jesus said
– “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Human life had been going on with people
repeatedly cycling through sin and its consequences – faithful for a while but then
failing again – until Jesus Christ. In Jesus a whole new beginning has been made.
There is a new creation. Sin and it’s consequences are not inevitable for us. So, our
lives are not determined by our parenting and how we grew up. I’ve heard people tell
me – “My mother or father didn’t love me – they treated me like dirt or they abused
me.” – “This is how I am. I can’t help myself.” – “I’m damaged goods.” As tragic as
our past may be because of family or other circumstances, our present and future are
made new in Jesus Christ. It’s not easy, but anyone who responds to God’s love in
Christ becomes a new being. In time, we grow to be more and more like Jesus.
Even the world we live in is different because of Jesus Christ. Many of the noblest of
human institutions that provide for people have their origins somewhere in the life of
the body of Christ. Schools and hospitals came from ministries of education and
healing. We may not like to hear this, but Social Security looks an awful lot like life in
the early church.
And, God interrupted human history in Jesus to break down the barriers between
people. Before Jesus, everyone was separated by rigid social, political, religious
rules that determined your behavior. Rules that created walls of hostility. But for
Jesus, there was never a Jew or a Gentile, never a barbarian or a civilized person,
never a free person or a slave, never a male or a female, never a Persian or a
Cyrenian or an Egyptian or a Hebrew. All received his gift of new life. As the body of
Jesus Christ, we are the ones to pass on the good news of the kingdom of God – of
freedom and new life without barriers between us. God’s reign on earth may not yet
be fully present, but we are called to be a sign of this new reality – a sign of the
kingdom of love.
Fully human/fully God. Not partly human/partly God. Jesus didn’t just seem to be
human. It wasn’t a divine mind in a human body. It’s another mystery that we simply
accept. I believe in Jesus Christ...who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the
Virgin Mary. Christ became like us so we could become like him. Amen