Lititz United Methodist Church Sermon Archive

As we begin the season of Advent, a season of preparation for the birth of Christ, I want to preach a series of sermons on the meaning and significance of the Incarnation. The word Incarnation is derived from a Latin word literally meaning “God incorporated in flesh” – in other words, God taking on human form, embodied in a person.

The Bible says God became one of us! Back in the 1990’s Joan Osborne had a hit song called “One Of Us”. It is a rather dark, melancholy tune that asks the question, “What if God was one of us”. Here are some of the words to that song:

“If God had a face What would it look like
And would you want to see If seeing meant that
You would have to believe In things like heaven and
Jesus and the saints And all the prophets

Chorus:
Yeah, yeah, God is great Yeah, yeah, God is good
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah
What if God was one of us Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home”

To some of us, these words might be offensive – “What if God was one of us Just a slob like one of us”. But to really believe that the eternal God became human for a while is an incredulous notion! For many of us, the Incarnation has lost its “shock-ability”! We have taken this astounding truth and sanitized it…neutralized it….robbed it of it’s shock-value and power! It’s sort of like, “The Almighty Creator of all things stepped into the physical world in the form of a person just like you and me” (yawn…ho-hum).

God became one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” The “Word” here means not only what God speaks, but God in action! In The Message, a modern paraphrase of the Scriptures, John 1:14 reads like this, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” The eternal God, who always was, for a while limited Himself, and entered time and space.

Some of the greatest minds have wrestled with the meaning of the Incarnation, and attempted to probe its profound depths. Let me mention just a few of the implications of God becoming one of us.

First of all, it means that God is approachable. God is not some distant deity, remote and aloof, unconcerned about what goes on in the world God created. God is so concerned about His world, and us, that He visited this planet. In fact, God longs for a relationship with us.

God is approachable because He experienced life as we do. God was a baby. When Jesus cried, God cried (and remember, Jesus was not potty trained from the day of His birth – if you get the drift of what I’m saying!).

God was a boy. When 12 year-old Jesus and His parents had a misunderstanding during their trip to the temple in Jerusalem, God was in that youngster and in that family problem. God was a carpenter. When Jesus used a hammer and chisel and saw to make furniture, it was our blue-collar God working as a tradesman.

When the man Jesus got tired, God was tired. When Jesus longed for companionship, it was God craving human friendship. When Jesus got mad, God was getting angry. When Jesus felt alone and abandoned, it was God feeling the pain of isolation. And when Jesus was betrayed by His friends, unfairly criticized, hated and hung on a cross, it was God suffering as a result of human sin.

If God was “one of us”, it means He understands what we’re going through. I doubt that there is anything we go through that Jesus didn’t experience a similar thing. He shares our joys; He knows our pain. We don’t have to be ashamed or afraid to come to Him with anything.

You may say, “Now wait minute. Jesus never sinned, did He? So how would He know what it is to have a moral failure, or be guilty over some sin?” True, Jesus never sinned. But He experienced the guilt and grief resulting from sin – even the separation and alienation from God that our sin causes – when He hung on the cross. He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

When we look at Jesus’ life, we see further proof that God is approachable. Max Lucado has said of Jesus: “He was touchable, approachable, reachable. And, what’s more, he was ordinary. If he were here today you probably wouldn’t notice him as he walked through a shopping mall. He wouldn’t turn heads by the clothes he wore or the jewelry he flashed.

“He was the kind of fellow you’d invite to watch the Rams-Giants game at your house. He’d wrestle on the floor with your kids, doze on your couch, and cook steaks on your grill. He’d laugh at your jokes and tell a few of his own. And when you spoke, he’d listen to you as if he had all the time in eternity. And one thing’s for sure, you’d invite him back.”

The religious Pharisees came to Him. Prostitutes didn’t feel unwelcomed or put down by Him. No one seemed to consider Him too holy, too divine, or too celestial to touch. No one seemed to stay away from Him for fear of being rejected.

For some reason, I have always had a problem feeling comfortable in the presence of authority figures, or people in prestigious or powerful positions. It’s even harder for me if these people project the feeling that their position or prominence puts them on a higher plane. But I will always remember a night Tony Campolo spoke at our church. This world renowned evangelist, author, sociologist sat in my study and chatted as if he were just “one of us”. I felt very much at ease and not even nervous as we talked about our families and ministries, and shared some of our joys and struggles.

That’s what God did. God humbled Himself and made Himself approachable in the person of Jesus.

The Incarnation, God coming into human flesh, also means that God has made plain His will and purposes. None of us has any reason to say, “I have no idea what God’s will is,” or “I haven’t the foggiest notion how God wants me to live.” Look at how Jesus lived and we see the pattern of how God intended all human beings to live. Listen to Jesus’ words and teaching and we hear God’s will and purposes explained as plain as day!

The story is told of Cary Grant, the great actor, one day bumping into a man on the street. The man looked at Grant, and recognized him. But he couldn’t remember Grant’s name. He said to Grant, “You’re…you’re…I know who you are; don’t tell me…uh…Rock Hud…no, you’re….” Cary Grant thought he would help the man out, so he said, “Cary Grant.” The man replied, “No that’s not it….you’re……”. Cary Grant walked away with the man still wondering who he was! He wouldn’t accept the truth, even though it was staring him in the face!

There are some of us who bump into Jesus; we hear about Him in church, Sunday School, or on the radio. Or we meet a person who wants to share her faith in Him. The Truth is staring us in the face, but we kind of blow it off. We have our own ideas of how to behave, our own view of what’s right and what’s wrong. Or, we simply prefer our own take on reality and what God wants from us humans than the one presented by Jesus.

This is one of the reasons why God coming to earth makes us uncomfortable, and can be an irritant – because it convicts us that the way we’re living is not in sync with the way God intends! Will Willimon has said, “Jesus Christ is the supreme act of divine intrusion into the world’s settled arrangements. In Christ, God refuses to ‘stay in his place’”.

That’s why Jesus began His ministry by saying, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The kingdom (God’s ways, God’s rule) is breaking into this world and cutting across our human, self-centered purposes. The only fitting response is to repent – to turn around, to change our ways.

In the Incarnation, in the life of Jesus, we see God making plain His will and purposes for life. Also, in the Incarnation, God provides for our salvation and transformation. If we are to align ourselves with God’s will and purposes, the beginning point is repentance. However, we need a power greater than ourselves if we are ever to rise above a life marked by evil, pride and self-interest. In short, we need to be saved. We need God’s power to change the way we live.

Again and again the Bible tells us that the reason God came in the person of Christ is to save us. “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). God lowered Himself and came to our level so He could lift us to a higher plane of living!

Billy Graham tells of walking one day near his home, and looking down on an anthill that had just been crushed. “I saw the carefully planned home was ruined and that several ants had been killed, and many had been injured. As I watched them writhing in agony and confusion, I wished for a moment that I were an ant. I wanted to be one of them so I could explain that I wanted to help them and tell them that I was sorry for the disaster. But I had no way of communicating with them, so I went on my way. But, when God looked down and saw the world devastated by sin, He did not go away! ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’ (John 3:16). That is what the Incarnation means. God did something about our plight. He did not turn His back upon us in our time of need.”

In the Incarnation, God became one of us, so that we might become more like Him.
2 Peter 1:4 says, “Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.” Romans 8:29 tells us: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.”

God took on our nature, so that we might take on His nature as revealed in Jesus. When we come to Christ, God begins a transformation in our life. We are “born again” – God’s nature begins to be infused into us. Leonard Sweet says, “The Incarnation is not something that happened just once. The incarnation is something that must happen in each one of us if we are not to be only half born.”

Is the Incarnation happening in you? In me? Have you been born again? Are we being reborn daily into the image and likeness of Christ? 1 Timothy 3:16 says, “Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great…”. Then he goes on to say, “He was revealed in flesh”. When all is said and done, the Incarnation is not something we can understand and explain, it is a mystery.

A pastor was getting his family ready to go to the church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service, where he would conduct the service. On the way to church, the pastor’s son asked, “Dad, are you going to let us enjoy Christmas this year or are you going to try to explain it to everybody?” Well, there is a sense in which the Incarnation is not something we explain, but rather something we experience and enjoy!

“The Incarnation”

“An Incarnational God: One Of Us”