Good day, everyone. Bishop Rachael from the Diocese of Brandon writing. While I am tickled pink to have been asked to write another article for The Rupert’s Land News, I must say that I find the topic interesting (and challenging) considering the time in which I am writing. It is the Easter Season. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Not many weeks ago, we heard Jesus tell Mary, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”[1] As we walk through this Easter season, we are walking with the Risen but not yet ascended Lord. His time of “Incarnation” has come and gone, and now He is somehow “in between”—He is here, but preparing us for when he won’t be…
I have always found myself in a bit of a theological pickle during Eastertide. I am so excited that we get to live in the glory of the Lord as He has broken the very bonds of death and shared with us the promise of eternal life. Yet I am also aware of a nebulous feeling of wanting desperately to hold onto what isn’t actually here. My brain knows the Resurrection has happened and that the Ascension is coming. My heart knows that we all need both the Resurrection and the Ascension for God’s plans to fully be made manifest. Yet, my gut has this low-grade dread that struggles with the reality that He was here—really here—and now He is sort of here, but preparing to not be here. Confused? Welcome to my world! I theologically know that this is all Truth. I spiritually know that this is all Grace. However, that part of me that is fully human, prone to second-guessing, and houses a fair amount of room for sheer doubt, leaves me pondering and silent (maybe I am channelling Mary…).[2]
So, here I am in Eastertide, pondering the Incarnation and wondering what it is that God is asking us to consider. Let’s begin with a definition. According to Merriam-Webster, “Incarnation, derived from Latin meaning ‘to put on flesh,’ refers to a deity, spirit, or abstract quality embodied in an earthly, human, or animal form. It is the physical manifestation of a spiritual or divine being, or the extreme embodiment of a concept. The term most commonly refers to the Christian doctrine of God becoming human through Jesus Christ.”
In our Christian tradition, we have approximately thirty-three years of Jesus’ Incarnation to learn from. We have four Gospels which directly connect how Jesus related to us in human form—incarnate. We are also gifted with the truth that God humbled Godself to become one like us, with us. Through the Incarnation, humanity was blessed to have God walking in our midst, teaching, healing, laughing, crying. God became one of us. The Incarnation of the Very God into the Son, Jesus, allowed humanity then and now to participate in the greatest gift and miracle this side of eternity. The Incarnation gave us a foretaste of what is to come, when we will walk with Jesus in our own eternal incarnation as a forgiven, redeemed child of God in eternity. Yet for right now, we are here, walking in the world that Jesus walked in as the Incarnate Son of God, but in which we walk as incarnate children of God.
If you’re paying close attention, you will notice that I capitalized the “I” when I referred to Jesus’ Incarnation, but I used the lowercase “i” when I referred to us as children of God. This is quite intentional. You see, the longer I live, study, pray, and try hard to walk the path Jesus has prepared ahead of me, the more convinced I become that Jesus continues to be Incarnate through us as we do our best to be incarnate Christians—little Christs. We can debate the Incarnation until the Second Coming, or we can live the vocation Jesus has placed upon each of us as we incarnate His love, His purpose, and His desire that all of God’s creation—each of God’s children—would choose to share in His Incarnation and Resurrection and Ascension.
In Ronald Rolheiser’s book The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, the author tells the following story:
“A four-year-old child awoke one night frightened, convinced that in the darkness around her there were all kinds of spooks and monsters. Alone, she ran to her parents’ bedroom. Her mother calmed her down and, taking her by the hand, led her back to her own room, where she put on a light and reassured her child with these words: ‘You needn’t be afraid, you are not alone here. God is in the room with you.’ The child replied, ‘I know that God is here, but I need someone in this room who has some skin!’”[3]
What that little girl was asking for was an incarnation of God, right there in the room with her. She needed to see and feel and hear the presence of Jesus to satisfy the very real humanity that was hers. In essence, was she not asking for exactly what God gifted us in Jesus Incarnate? She wanted—needed—the presence of the One who loved her, and knew her, and whom she could absolutely trust to protect her. So, what did she do? She went to her mother, who became the incarnation of Jesus for her. She needed God with “some skin,” and God moved in her mother’s skin to give her exactly what she needed.
You and I, and all those generations who came after the Marys, the Apostles, and the first disciples, have been longing to know that we have a Saviour right here with us. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we would like to see God with some skin on from time to time. Wouldn’t that just make everything a little bit easier?
There is something powerful and comforting and encouraging in knowing that God is Incarnate right here with us in Jesus. As Christians, we believe that Jesus’ Incarnation gave Him that extra understanding of being fully human, which allows us to be comforted knowing that God does get it. Jesus lived the real human life and can empathize with the human state in all its glory and frailty. And then there is the truth that Jesus was also fully divine. That truth allows us to also know that we have been in relationship—full relationship—with the fully divine God too. In Jesus’ Incarnation, we have been, and continue to be, privileged to be in a completely whole and encompassing relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who was, is, and ever shall be “God with some skin.”
As with any real gift worth receiving, though, the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ brings with it the responsibility of all of us to continue in that Incarnational relationship by having incarnational relationships ourselves. In our baptism, we enter a new kind of all-encompassing relationship with the Triune God, which then calls us and challenges us to become living incarnations of Jesus’ love with all whom we meet. It isn’t enough that we simply talk about our faith. It won’t suffice that we treat others the way we want to be treated ourselves. We are called to the higher vocation of living as little Christs. We are called to become the skin of God for someone who is searching and in need of hope and healing.
No matter our best efforts or most fervent prayers, we will never become the Incarnate One that is the fully divine, fully human God Incarnate, but we can do our best to live into the call Jesus has on us to be His hands, His feet, and His voice of compassion, hope, and justice in the world. Jesus has commissioned us to be an incarnation of His love in the world. We are called to become the “skin” on God for those around us who are seeking God’s generous and ever-present Incarnational Love!
[1] John 20:17.
[2] Cf. Luke 2:19, 51.
[3] Rolheiser, Ronald, The Holy Longing: The Search For a Christian Spirituality. (New York, New York: Doubleday, 199), p 77.
