Origin Story and Incarnation

On this 5^th day of the 12 Days of Christmas

I will briefly tell you about the birth narrative of Jesus according to John,

         for that is what this Gospel reading is – a birth narrative.

         

Yes, we have the origin story as related in 

                  Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s Gospel, none in Mark’s Gospel,

         but here in John the origin story goes cosmic.

The effect/the impact it has on me is to drive me to step back from 

                  the shepherds and angels, and stable,

         and consider the bigger picture in time and space 

                  within which this Incarnation took place.

 

In the First Century of the Common Era, 

         the geopolitical reality of the Roman Empire is that it had taken over 

                  the earlier expansive conquest of Alexander “the Great.”

The Roman Empire had imposed the “Pax Romana” 

         over the entire Mediterranean region and beyond

                  from Britain and Gaul in the North to Egypt in the South 

         and eastward swallowing up all of what was known as Asia Minor.

Pax Romana “peace” provided stability for this vast region

         but what sort of stability?

 It was a military presence to suppress any attempts 

         to break free and be independent 

         and escape the costs of this Peace that Rome was imposing

         to create an economic Peace – 

so that goods and resources could be extracted with impunity

                  throughout the Empire 

         doing this through an extensive imbedded tax system

impoverishing the peoples upon whom the taxes were imposed.

 

And God wants to incarnate specifically into human existence 

         in the midst of this abomination of creation?

Of course.                  That’s exactly what God would do:

         choose the worst possible set of circumstances and show up there.

 

Think of it this way:  everything/the whole universe in a sense 

         is incarnation – God with us.

Creation is the first Gospel – the origin story to top all origin stories.

But this is a specific Incarnation for a very specific purpose –

         to show us all for all time just how much God is with us, 

                  that it is God in us, or more accurately we are IN God.

  “in whom we live and move and have our being.” 

                                                               as it says in Acts 17:28.

 

So this specific, highly concentrated Incarnation event

         happens in a crude shelter in a small town of a small country 

         engulfed in a much larger and more powerful 

                                             military and economically exploitative power, 

where locally the Roman vassal Herod has his own pitiful reign of terror                            that includes mass murder of children.

 

As I said,

    under the worst possible conditions God incarnates as a helpless infant.

 

A helpless infant who provides the way for hope for the world,

         for every hopeless situation that ever was or ever will be.

Hope – Light – revealing, as incarnations do, the Love of the Creator

         that washes the blindness of our hearts out of us

         that liberates us from our desperately narrow self-interest,

         that expands our vision, 

         that saves us from ourselves.

 

Christmas, the way we might observe it,

   provides us the opportunity for experiencing what we call the Incarnation.

Another name for Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us.

But let’s take it a step further – God IN us.

         Or flip that – Us in God.

How many of you are familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia

         that favorite series of children’s books by C. S. Lewis?

         and the scene from book 6, The Magician’s Nephew,

                           which is the origin story for the whole series.

 

Aslan, the Lion, the Christ figure, 

         does not just speaks the words of creation, like in Genesis 1.

He sings them.

And everything comes into being in response to 

         tempo, key signatures, 

         and the dynamics of the melodies, themes and variations.

The energetics of sound, like primal light, produce the glory of creation.

Everything that exists flowed out of the mind, 

         out of the imagination of the Maker 

                  and bears the DNA of the Creator.  God in us and we in God.

 

Now, here’s the thing:

         Creation was not a one off event.

No deist theology of a cosmic clock maker 

         who puts all the stars and galaxies and plants together, 

         wound them up to run on their own 

                           and then retired for a Sabbath rest.

No, creation is a continuing process of coming into being,

         living, dying, decomposing, recombining and evolving life –

                           a continuous creative process.

And we all are elemental in this process.

We all exist within the infinite space of divine creativity, 

         and we are invited to join in the song of creation.

This is the glory – the wonder, the splendor – of it all.

This all is Incarnation.

 

Think of it this way.

         All that is coming into being is through the Incarnate Word.

A continuing process of birth, but with an astounding fact – 

         that this process of being born is not time sensitive, 

                  not limited by linear time,

                  but is infinitely / always happening.

All that is occurs within the womb of the Creator,

         and, if that is so, 

                  then this implies that the umbilical cord has yet to be cut.

         We are still being born.

         We are partaking in the Incarnation, even in this very moment.

 

And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us

and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of God.