Being Human

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As a Christian, I view the Incarnation as the focal point for my faith: "the Word became flesh and made his home among us" (John 1:14 CEB). Life pivots on this reality.

Unfortunately, we lose sight of that pivot because we obscure it with theories and abstractions. Ironically, these hypothetical ways of looking at the incarnation go against the grain of the meaning of one key purpose of incarnation itself, which was to make flesh holy. That is, Jesus came to reveal God's meaning of the word 'human,' and he made being human the highest vision any of us can have about ourselves.

If we miss this, we leave an empty space in the meaning of life--a vacuum which must be filled because meaninglessness and emptiness leave us unsatisfied. So, we cast around trying to find substitutes that will fill the hole in the soul. Among the most common substitutes today, we accumulate one or more of these...

  • Racial supremacy--generally some version of "white normalcy" that causes us to believe the way we live is how everyone ought to live, generating overt and covert discrimination.
  • Nationalism--generally some idealized notion of a country which never was, falsely validating a return to a "greatness" which can never be, creating a xenophobic mindset in the citizenry.
  • Political affiliation--generally a direct or indirect linkage of a political party with God, portraying the appearance of righteousness in designated leaders that is not verified by their character and conduct, equating demagoguery with leadership.
  • Identity superiority--generally ascribing a higher status and value to certain genders (males), identities (heterosexuals), and life stages (youthfulness), establishing systems where mysogyny, sexual bias, and ageism regulate relationships, economic compensation, health care, education, justice, service in the military, etc.
  • Citizenship--generally a way of making those with it safer and more secure than those without it, relegating aliens, refugees, and immigrants to less-than categories, and justifying punitive actions toward alleged undesirables.

In short, when our humanity ceases to be the defining element, some form of egotism and/or ethnocentrism will fill the void. In this way, the original sin continues to be expressed.

All this, and more, when we miss the fact that the incarnation was meant to say, "Being human is God's best idea, and it is the singular factor for determining how we should live and how we should treat others." When we recognize this, Jesus' life is the message and the model. He lived the way we are supposed to live, and he treated others the way we are supposed to treat them.

The incarnation is not meant to engage us in trying to figure out how the divine and the human were mixed in Jesus (e.g. hypostatic union), but rather to show how the divine and the human is meant to interact in us to make us who God intends for us to be. "The Word became flesh" in Jesus. Is it becoming flesh in us? That's the question.

The Rev. Dr. Steve Harper is a retired seminary professor, who taught for 32 years in the disciplines of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies. Author and co-author of 31 books and a retired Elder in The Florida Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, he and his wife Jeannie Waller Harper are frequent leaders of workshops and spiritual retreats. This post is republished with permission from his blog Oboedire.