The Incarnation & Becoming Human
What does it mean to be human? What are people for? What are People For? is the title of a book of essays by Wendell Berry, an actively working 83 year old novelist, poet, and essayist from Kentucky. The question sounds silly at first. We are used to hearing questions like, “What is the gizmo-gadget for, and how does it make me more productive?” When someone asks us, “What are people for?” we might be thrown off guard, because perhaps we don’t know. Our consumer culture views people in a particular way and we subconsciously pick up this viewpoint. Everyone seems to be measured by some economic price point or production value. Are people here to make all of the stuff we want to get or to buy all the stuff we produce? Is there more to what it means to be human than to consume, rinse, and repeat?
The Christmas Story shows us what people are for; Jesus shows us what people are for.
In the Mystery of Christmas we embrace, celebrate, and honor what it means to be human. We are not here to celebrate another candle on Jesus’ birthday cake. We might think this sounds odd and rather un-Christian to focus on the human side of this story. (Surely, someone is thinking, is he preaching HUMANISM up there?) Remember, the crown of God’s creation is the creation of humanity (Genesis 1:29–31), which is coming to its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus.
Christmas celebrates what it means to be human, because the primary theological point of the birth of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is what is known as the INCARNATION. Christmas is traditionally called the Feast, or, the Celebration of the Incarnation. Christmas is the feast that makes Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection possible. Our salvation is delivered in Christ’s birth and life, and it is accomplished in his death and resurrection.
Because incarnation is not a common word, and it is so central to Christianity, it must be explained. To incarnate means to take on flesh. Growing up in southern California when I hear CARNE, I automatically think Carne Asada, or perhaps you think Chili-Con-Carne. All these words share the latin root CARNE which means FLESH or MEAT. Carne Asada is grilled meat (flesh), Chili-con-carne is Chili with MEAT, and God Incarnate means, “God in the Flesh” which is what we celebrate in the Birth of Christ. Christianity affirms that Jesus is fully god and fully divine even though he took on human form.
This belief is at the very center of the Christian faith, and it is what makes Christianity unique amongst the world religions. While many religions have a god or gods and some kind of prophet, only Christianity has a human Prophet who is also God.
But this belief is not just some esoteric dogma, but it is the foundation for which our lives, our morality, our happiness and our experience of time in this life rests upon. The incarnation of the Son of God raises up the value of humanity because our Divine and Loving God decided to enter into and experience our humanity in the birth of Christ. As St. Irenaeus said, “He became what we are that we might become what he is.” Incarnational living means to embrace the world that God has given to us, and caring for it with his love. Incarnational living means to embrace our humanity, to enjoy the fruits of the earth, and to experience (and not deny) all the emotions of what it means to be human.
At Christmas, we like to have a good time in our bodies. We like to be with those we love, we like to eat, drink, and be merry; this is very incarnational. If we want to know how to party, we must learn to see Celebration in its proper place. Jesus himself embraced humanity, he did a lot of eating and drinking. He also spent time alone in solitude, he spent time with crowds, he wept when a friend died, and he got so angry at Religious people that he flipped over tables and shouted at them.
This Christmas when we think about whom we want to be in the new year, we must consider re-embracing our humanity. We must look at those around us and embrace their humanity as well. This is what it means to have an incarnational ministry: to live our life of faith in the body in the place where God has called us to be.
In the 20th century, Christian thinkers were obsessed with proving the existence of God. This is no longer our challenge. The challenge of the 21st century will be to show the world what it means to be human, and we can do that, by becoming more and more like Christ.
“The great question that hovers over this issue, one that we have dealt with mainly by indifference, is the question of what people are for. Is their greatest dignity in unemployment? Is the obsolescence of human beings now our social goal? One would conclude so from our attitude toward work, especially the manual work necessary to the long-term preservation of the land, and from our rush toward mechanization, automation, and computerization. In a country that puts an absolute premium on labor-saving measures, short workdays, and retirement, why should there be any surprise at permanence of unemployment and welfare dependency? Those are only different names for our national ambition.”- Wendell Berry
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