And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
He became like us, so we could become like Him.
Emmanuel, God with us! Whatever an amazing, breath taking reality! Our God is with us! Our God desires us, he wants to have a relationship with us! This is the essence of our Christian faith. We are created in God’s image and likeness and yet he humbly took on our humanity and walked amongst us in all of our earthiness. It’s easy to clean Jesus up; we picture him as a sweet cuddly baby, but we forget he had dirty diapers and may have kept Mary and Joseph up at night with a colicky cry. We hear the story of him getting lost and separated from his parents and being found preaching in the temple, but we never think of him being a hormonal, stinky, moody teenager. We hear the story of Mary asking him to perform his first public miracle but we never stop to wonder how far he had to walk barefoot or in handmade sandals to get to the party. We forget that he may have suffered the common cold or a sore throat, that heart burn may have been a part of his life, that he got very tired, dirty and smelly, hungry and thirsty. He became one of us for goodness sake! And not for his sake, but for ours!
Jesus was God with skin on Fully divine. Fully human.
You’ve heard the expression “Jesus with skin on “ to refer to someone who re-presents (to present again)Christ to the world, a call we all have as believers. If you really do take seriously your own call to be Jesus with skin on or Jesus in blue jeans or as a woman or with pale skin or…
or how ever you like to think of it, how will that effect your attitudes as you move through this final week of Advent?
How will you choose to be Jesus in Kroger or DLM?
How will you choose to be Jesus when you see a family member who really gets under your skin?
How will you choose to be Jesus when you are tired from staying up baking or wrapping?
How will you choose to be Jesus when your family does not meet your expectations and don’t look like those in a Hallmark movie?
How will you choose to be Jesus when more people show up for dinner than you prepared for?
How will you choose to let Jesus in to the middle of your own humanity?
The greatest gift that was ever given to us was the gift of Jesus. In turn, being like Jesus is the greatest gift that we can ever be others.
As you breathe and stretch this week on your yoga mat, imagine that Jesus,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God, occupied a human body just like the one you are moving.
He became like us so that we could become like him.