(Message given at Wayside Friends Church on December 22, 2019)
The song of the season I want to launch from tonight is actually just a part of a stanza from “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’incarnate deity; pleased, with us, in flesh to dwell; Jesus our Emmanuel.”
I want to talk about incarnation: the power of the Trinity embodying, or flesh-ifying, or whatever word you want to make up. I want to share how new layers of meaning and transformation keep unfolding as I think about this central hope of Christmas.
Many of you know that the German medieval mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, has been taking me by the hand and teaching me over the last year and a half. Which is pretty amazing, since she’s been dead for more than 800 years. Some of the most transformative themes in her writings are her thoughts on incarnation, and what it means for us. For Hildegard, incarnation is not just Jesus in a manger; she pulls us all the way back to see it in creation, and then zips us forward right into the present day, to find incarnation here and now. So let’s dive in!
Whenever I think of the beginning, of God creating everything, I have this huge longing to go back in time and see unspoiled nature—to see creation untouched by humanity.
With how we’ve changed climate and pillaged the world, we can’t find a single place on the planet today that is unspoiled. But the longing is there!
Turns out, thanks to a bunch of you, Elaine and I got to go to one of the best places in the world to see nature. Two years ago, we got to go to New Zealand, an island where the first humans arrived just a little over 1000 years ago, the Maori people. We got to see really ancient landscapes!
I mean seriously people! Hobbiton! from the Third Age of Middle Earth! That goes WAY BACK THERE! (Is it really a message from me without a Lord of the Rings reference?)
Of course we did also see stunning landscapes.
Being out in beauty is an escape.
To quote Switchfoot, “do we know what life is/outside of our convenient Lexus cages?”
Human civilization brings a stilted, confining, rigid order.
We often long to escape the monotony of day-after-day sameness.
Creation, nature, has no monotony!
There is wonder, and variety, and infinite vistas that spark the imagination.
Elaine and I sat here by the shore of Lake Wanaka, knowing that for at least forty miles in front of us, there were no roads, no towns, no homes. It was a feeling of freedom I had never known.
I need to name the privilege that lies in escaping to the “wild”.
And I don’t just mean the money and time, although that obviously is a part of it. It’s a huge part of our privilege to live lives that are so ordered, safe, and monotonous that we feel the need to escape from them.
In the ancient world, the world was seen as chaotic. There was fear in the wild, in the unknown, fear which brought a longing for safety and order. If I really think about it, how scared would I be if I was actually dropped in the middle of that 40 square miles of wild? If I needed to create my own shelter, find my own food? What would I do when I got sick? If I broke an ankle? It doesn’t take much for me to imagine the chaos and fear that lies just outside of our safe and ordered modern life. And, it doesn’t take much imagination—just open eyes—to see people around us who are being swallowed by the chaos experienced outside of my privileged order.
In the ancient world, almost everyone longed for order. For things rightly ordered. And the book of Genesis starts the story right at that place!
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Genesis 1:1-2
Look first at the echoes of the chaos.
There is no order—everything is formless and empty. “The deep” of the ocean haunted the ancient world; nightmarish sea creatures and untamed waves made the deep a place of fear.
But now, look at God’s Spirit, activity, and presence. God is hovering over the deep! God is present, and God’s activity will bring order to the chaos. God is ALWAYS hovering in the stuff of matter! The Divine Spirit and the stuff of creation have always been joined. As God speaks creation into existence, we see that God separates and groups, bringing order to the chaos, and quelling our primal fear.
Hildegard captures God’s activity so beautifully!
I fly through the most distant galaxies of space on wings of wisdom, creating order wherever I go. I’m the divine flame of life, I burn above the golden fields, I sparkle on water, and I shine like the sun, the moon, and all the stars. Together with the loving, hidden power of the wind, I make everything come alive.
Hildegard of Bingen, (1098-1179)
God’s creative work is to rightly order creation so that we can truly live. But it is not like the order our soul-killing human civilization so often brings. God’s well-tended order is infinitely diverse and creative, a vibrant, interdependent ecosystem teeming with life…as God hovers over and within it all. The Trinity, from the beginning, dwelling in the stuff of matter—bringing vibrant, tended, ordered LIFE!
Listen here, as Hildegard connects God’s work in creation with God’s work in Bethlehem:
Strength of the everlasting! In your heart you invented order. Then you spoke the word and all that you ordered was, just as you wished. And your word put on vestments woven of flesh cut from a woman born of Adam to bleach the agony out of his clothes.
Hildegard of Bingen, (1098-1179)
The incarnation of Jesus was not a new thing!
It is what God has always been and done. God created with a word, the Trinity hovered and ordered the chaos, and now the word puts on vestments, puts on priestly garments to “pastor” us…vestments woven of flesh, a human body born from the brave obedience of one barely old enough to be called woman.
I love the exquisite beauty of Hildegard’s words! But of course she isn’t making this up.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people”.
John 1:1-4
Then, verse 14!
“The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.”
John 1:14
The Gospel of John screams out to us: pay attention! THIS is who God always is.
The Gospel of John identifies Jesus with that burst of Genesis creative ordering. The Word was with God in the beginning, hovering over the chaos, whispering order and life into being.
Now, the Divine relationship of Love comes closer, to hover, to dwell, to pitch a tent. The language used here has so many echoes!
The word translated “made his dwelling among us” literally means “pitched his tent with us.” It’s the same word from Exodus, an echo back to tabernacle in the wilderness, as Moses led the people out of slavery in Egypt.
God never leaves! God ALWAYS is with humanity. Even in, especially in times of oppression and fear and doubt. Just like the cloud by day and the fire by night settled down and filled that tabernacle tent, Jesus settles down and fills a space of sanctuary right in the middle of OUR oppression, fear, and doubt!
God’s work is ALWAYS the same! Hovering, dwelling, being present with us—not afraid of or powerless against the overwhelming chaos of our lives, but bringing sanctuary and holy ground right where we are—bringing beautiful, alive, interdependent, ordered community to make us feel at home and safe
Hildegard’s emphasis on incarnation, on God taking on flesh and living in the stuff of matter, has helped me appreciate the power of John’s Gospel in new ways.
Without discounting the work of the cross, let’s celebrate the power of the incarnation itself! Incarnation makes the stuff of matter, the stuff of our very bodies—incarnation makes US holy ground where God pitches a tent!
How many of us battle accepting the bodies we are in? The incarnation of Jesus reminds us it is God’s presence in flesh that makes it right and good and holy. God’s presence brings goodness into our very bodies, a strength for us when we think our bodies don’t measure up to our society’s standards.
And don’t forget what Jesus actually DID as he walked around in that amazing union of body and spirit! He touched the lepers, embraced the unclean. He ate and laughed with the ones marginalized by society, giving them value by his presence and his willingness to embrace.
God became human, giving the stamp of approval on bodies in general.
AND THEN! Jesus walked around giving specific stamps of approval on the ones stamped by the rest of humanity as failures, as not enough, broken, or unclean.
God is bleaching the agony, to steal Hildegard’s line, bleaching the agony out of our devaluing systems! God is looking you in the eye, addressing those voices of pain and rejection, and saying: “I’m here in the chaos and the swirl to speak truth, to bring order, to place YOU in the ranks of the beloved!”
Tonight I’ve been given the privilege of a microphone, and I want to use it to amplify Jesus’ words of acceptance.
You, the people of Wayside Friends, have had voices from all over the map telling you that you are not worthy, not accepted, not correct; that you’ve failed, that you are too much, or that you’ve gone too far, or that you’ve not gone far enough. But no voice, no mistake, no failure, no disagreement, no action or lack of action has ANY power to erase this truth:
God hovers over you and comes near! Jesus reaches out, touches you, embraces you, looks you in the eye and says: “Hold on to me! You are beloved!”
When I went to Germany last summer to Hildegard’s home, I was on a personal spiritual pilgrimage.
The heart of it happened here, in the chapel of the St. Hildegard Abbey, where 48 nuns live, work, pray, and worship. Five times a day, I sat here, in the hopes that God would hover over me, and order the chaos of my mind and spirit.
When you sit here for the times of worship, you can’t see the sisters. But oh my, the community is there. Out of sight to the left, their voices rise, and float, and fill the room with harmony and beauty.
They choose to see themselves as secluded for the sake of the world. They pray for you and me, and for all who can’t pray around the world. They are, right now, the hands and feet of Jesus. The body of Christ.
“Now you (plural) are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
1 Corinthians 12:27
We are too! Incarnation did not begin and end in Bethlehem. It began at creation, wandered through the desert and in exile, walked in Palestine, and now exists around the world in Christ-centered community. We gather in the name of Jesus, and God inhabits, moves, dwells, lives in us.
And just like when the Triune God walked around in the flesh and touched the untouchables, the Triune God incarnated in our Christ-centered community inhabits us to extend love and grace and belovedness in this world.
THIS is why we name our love for LGBTQ people! THIS is why we gather food for those in the schools and around the world who need it! THIS is why we put ourselves in the swirl, in the chaos…to allow Christ in us to bring order, love, value, clarity, truth, and a stable foundation.
To love! To touch! To act and speak value, when so many others are devaluing. To give those swirling in oppression and chaos a glimpse of what God’s sanctuary home looks and feels like.
Listen to Hildegard again:
Loving your son you loved us all into being; let us all be his limbs.
Hildegard of Bingen, (1098-1179)
And again:
O Eternal God, now may it please you to burn in love so that we become the limbs fashioned in the love you felt when you begot your Son at the first dawn before all creation.
Hildegard of Bingen, (1098-1179)
This is our path, our mission, our hope.
And it is through incarnation, through the Divine Presence of Love making a home in you and in me.
You will not hear me say “try harder”; “do better.”
You will always hear me say: “Let Jesus Christ make a home in you. In us.”
May we live, laugh, breathe, and love with the power of God’s presence!
(You can read more about Hildegard and my journey in my book)
