The last time I wrote, we were in the depths of Holy Week, entering into the sublime solemnity of that festival. Today, I write to you from the stark and simultaneously bright Dawson City, Yukon. This town sits amidst snow-dusted mountains and at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers. It is the latest stop on a road trip undertaken by my close companions, Iona, Seika and I. Since the trip began in Winnipeg on April 18th, we have been continuously bombarded by the immense beauty of this land in a manner which makes the reality of the incarnation, expressed in the divinity we witness imbued in nature, impossible to ignore.
As quite a young twig, I find the notion of incarnation quite difficult to understand, let alone explore, and so I turn again to the words of the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. In an article entitled “Heaven Meets Earth: In the birth of Christ, God comes to restore and set free every person and all creation,” Williams writes, “heaven and earth are not mutually remote territories but closer to one another than we could think.”[1] While theoretically it is possible to accept the fact that heaven and earth are nearer than we can imagine, it is a difficult notion to grasp and an even harder one to live into. One key question which the topic of incarnation brings up, is ‘if Christ, the Godhead, love incarnate, takes on our human form, what does that mean for the way in which we live out our corporeal existence?’
This question came up in a recent conversation the three of us had with our old roommate and dear friend Sascha, whom we met up with in Vancouver. The conversation started when Sascha, who somehow found a way to beautifully break open the strong knot between the three of us and enter into our tightly wound dynamic, stated that the thing he found most difficult about modern Christianity was the way in which people thought of themselves as more Godlike than others. He went on to state that it was actually, more specifically, the way in which people thought that they were capable of emulating Christ. Although we approached the conversation from a variety of perspectives, it seemed that we were all troubled by this idea and in some ways confused about where that left us.
If there is something seemingly ‘off’ about this notion of emulating Christ, but it is given as a clear directive in the final commandment, “…that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another,”[2] how are we meant to live in the world as Christians? How are we meant to live as embodied persons in a way which honours the God who crafts us in his likeness and who visits us in our own human flesh? Before exploring these questions, it is important to clarify two things. Firstly, the language of the commandment indicates that Christ is not commanding us to be exactly like Him; we are not told that this is something we are even capable of. Secondly, the thing that Sascha was highlighting as problematic was the claim of superiority present in the idea of becoming God-like, a notion which does not have a place within this commandment.
So then, how are we to live? Williams states earlier in his article that: “To be ‘godlike’… is not to be in control or ‘on top of’ everything.”[3] It is not a matter of refining our actions to perfection – a Sisyphean task. Williams highlights that by taking our fragile human forms, Christ shows us the path. By fully living into our mortality, the Godhead turns our awareness towards the ways in which we are reliant on each other. Even beyond our basic needs, which are met physically, it is impossible for love to be encountered entirely apart from our bodies – it is continuously received through our senses via images, sounds, sensations, and words. Despite the fact that humanity is incapable of reaching perfection, without our bidding, the one who is perfect enters into our history and redeems our broken bodies making them the site of integration into his divinity. Williams writes: “the Redeemer…is not ashamed to be fed by what God has made, by the warmth and the shelter and the milk of a human body.”[4] This quotation is striking in that it explores something more of the importance of receptivity, a topic which Williams returns to time and time again. Christ shows us that the way to be God-like is to remain permeable to what is given, to accept our reliance.
While this path can steer us away from any notion of God-like superiority, it is not an easy path for us as pride-filled humans to undertake. However, when we encounter the non-human natural world: the towering cliffs, the grazing bison, the impossibly intricate blossoms, the migrating hummingbird, the running streams, the golden sun — it seems to live into this permeable receptivity with less conscious effort. As evidenced by the way in which mycelium develops, and the ways in which food chains and ecosystems operate, non-human nature understands its responsibility to live in interdependence without thinking about it. If you have had the privilege of sitting with an Elder or Indigenous teacher and hearing them discuss our relationship to the natural world, you may have heard the term “All My Relations.” This teaching, held by many Indigenous groups of this land, relates to a way of living which honours each being on this earth as family and as interconnected.[5]
Williams continues on in his article to say: “Once we have been healed from that lethal wound that has broken our connection with living truth, healed from the terrible fiction that freedom is separation rather than communion, the world is made new.”[6] Williams here addresses the incarnation as being fundamentally about the way in which Christ takes on our human form and makes our bodies the conduit through which we are connected to him. Therefore, the invitation for us as Christians is to live into our corporeal state in a way which honours our place as one part of the body of Christ.
[1] Rowan Williams, “Heaven Meets Earth: In the Birth of Christ, God Comes to Restore and Set Free Every Person and All Creation,” Plough, December 8, 2023.
[2] John 13:34-35.
[3] Rowan Williams, “Heaven Meets Earth: In the Birth of Christ, God Comes to Restore and Set Free Every Person and All Creation.”
[4] Rowan Williams, “Heaven Meets Earth.”
[5] Rod McCormick, “A Message From Our Director,” All My Relations: Faculty of Education and Social Work: Thompson Rivers University, accessed April 30, 2026.
[6] Rowan Williams, “Heaven Meets Earth.”
