Tag Archives: Jesus of Nazareth

Christmas Reflection: The Divine Embrace

Faithful Christians and thoughtful spiritual seekers are rightly in awe of the truth of the Incarnation: in Jesus of Nazareth, God forever becomes human. This is what billions celebrate each year: the Savior of the world comes to us in the innocence and vulnerability of a baby.

Jesus Christ was born…to die. His human growth, adult work as a carpenter, and Messianic public ministry all matter as he unveils the divine life of a human being and the human life of God. Jesus’s words and works – forgiving, delivering, healing and reconciling – all serve as models of life in God’s kingdom. But the most important act in this this drama is found in the Passion: Jesus voluntarily submitting himself to injustice, unspeakable agony, and a cruel death by crucifixion. This pathway had – and still has – a purpose: our salvation. In the hours of agony on Good Friday, our Lord represented all of humankind and was our mediator, our representative as he took on all our sins and sorrows, sufferings and unanswered questions. And death did not have the final word as we celebrate the Lord’s bodily resurrection on Easter morning!

The Bible offers four portraits of our Lord.

For Matthew, Jesus is forever our Immanuel – the With-Us-God (Matthew 1:22-23). And in his resurrection on Easter, we see our future on display: body and spirit transformed and assurance of our eternity in God’s presence (Matthew 28). Jesus comes with a new revelation of God’s presence, authority, and teaching, declaring God’s kingdom and demonstrating God’s grace (Matthew 5-7 and 8-9)

For Mark, Jesus is the Sovereign who demonstrates his authority through humility, and his power through serving (Mark 10:45). Everything the Lord asks of his followers he has done as a human being! Even though his followers are slow to grasp all of this, he patiently loves them and calls them to service.

For Luke, Jesus is the Savior of all humankind: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, women and men, and everyone from every culture, ethnicity, and race that humbly calls on him for mercy (Luke 1-2; 7, 18-19, 24). Women are welcomed alongside men in Jesus’s inner circle (Luke 8).

For John, The One who is the Eternal Word made flesh (God becoming a human being in the womb of Mary), offers all who believe eternal and overflowing life (John 3:16; 10:10). The key that unlocks this is active believing – authentic trust in who he is and in what he has done through the cross and resurrection (John 20:31).

May our Christmas be filled with gratitude for grace, hope rooted in holy love, and love flowing from the fact that we love God because he first loved us.

An Advent of Hope: Christmas 2015

Into a small village in an obscure province of the first-century the Roman Empire, a baby is born during a census. His parents are part of the artisan class, neither “dirt poor” nor “filthy rich.” His birth sparks some local and regional interest as pious Jews in the Temple and humble shepherds declare the dawn of a Messianic Age. Babylonian and Persian scholars journey for months and honor this toddler with lavish gifts. King Herod, a despotic and paranoid appointee of Rome, reacts to a potential rival with a killing frenzy targeting under two-year-old children. Undoubtedly the census helped his soldiers carry out this inhumane task.

Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure and the subject of adoration and disdain, deep loyalty and religious animosity. The Gospel records offer enough tantalizing details without the exhaustive data 21st century folks crave. Jewish and Roman sources affirm his existence and importance, especially as a catalyst for a rift in Judaism. His first followers were devout Jews. Their affirmation of Jesus’ Messianic office and Lordship led to expulsion from synagogues, persecution from Roman leaders and the formation of a new faith that now includes both Jews and Gentiles as equals.

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ conception and birth. For his followers, it is the dawn of a new hope, the inauguration of a new age of salvation that will reach its fulfillment in Jesus’s crucifixion and bodily resurrection and its consummation with his glorious return in the future. The surprising and transformative news is that there is forgiveness of sins, empowerment for holy love and deep assurance of eternal hope available now, even as final salvation is yet to come.

The audacity of Christian hope is that all who believe enjoy favor with God and deep peace, new fellowship and a sense of divine mission right now. Our eternal security unleashes passions for purity and service. Though final redemption awaits Christ’s return, substantial “providential increases” (John Wesley) are possible today, from personal life-change to social transformations.

Let’s welcome our Lord with awe and humility, wonder and willingness to change. As we allow this real hope to permeate our lives, we join with god in the reconciling of all things.