Incarnation as a way of life
One of the things that’s been on my mind a lot over the past month or so is the Incarnation and what it means for us. Some of this is not new — Scott has preached numerous sermons over the years addressing these matters — but I recently re-read a few discussions of the Incarnation (or Incarnation-related topics) that I found very insightful and helpful.
The first text that I came across is from Calvin, writing about the Lord’s Table. I’ve heard a lot of teaching on Communion, I’ve studied it pretty intensively, and I’ve read this text many times, but this time around Calvin’s comments really struck me as expressing a deep truth about living the Incarnational. He states:
Rather, it [the Table] was ordained to be frequently used among all Christians in order that they might frequently return in memory to Christ’s Passion, by such remembrance to sustain and strengthen their faith, and urge themselves to sing thanksgiving to God and to proclaim his goodness; finally, by it to nourish mutual love, and among themselves give witness to this love, and discern its bond in the unity of Christ’s body. For as often as we partake of the symbol of the Lord’s body, as a token given and received, we reciprocally bind ourselves to all the duties of love in order that none of us may permit anything that can harm our brother, or overlook anything that can help him, where
necessity demands and ability suffices.
What I think Calvin is getting at is that when we partake of the Table, we commit ourselves to personify Christ to one another. To fail in being attentive to one another’s physical and spiritual needs is to strip the Table of a large part of its meaning; it’s to fail to discern the Lord’s Body and Blood.
The other text that I read was the first few pages of Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in which he contrasts cheap and costly grace. He closes his discussion of each with a statement about the Incarnation:
“Cheap grace is a denial of the Incarnation of God”
“Costly grace is the Incarnation of God”
Bonhoeffer basically describes how Christians behave when their lives are characterized by cheap grace (uncommitted, unchanged, and weak) and by costly grace (sold out and strong). When he says that cheap grace is a denial of the Incarnation, I think that he’s telling us that lives lived under cheap grace make Christ invisible, while lives lived under costly grace clearly portray Christ both to the world at large and to other believers.
Brothers and sisters, I want to see the face of Jesus when I come to church on Sundays, but I also want to see Him when I hear about and participate in service opportunities. I want to hear about how a bunch of folks had a great time helping someone move. I want to be with a group of guys remodeling the church office space to make it usable for ministry, counseling, and other activities. These are the things that enflesh Jesus in our midst.