Be the God

Behold the Man, by Full of Eyes

Propers: Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 21), AD 2024 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

God became man, that man might become God.

So wrote St Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his fourth-century treatise On the Incarnation of the Word. More recently, C.S. Lewis said much the same thing, though with slightly duller teeth, when he stated in Mere Christianity: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” But that’s only less offensive on the surface. At heart it’s just as scandalous as ever, regardless of the century in which we may be writing.

This is one of those statements so shocking, so absurd, that either the person saying it is utterly insane, or they’re speaking a truth so devastating that it rocks us to our core. All of Christianity rises and falls upon the conviction that this man, Jesus Christ, is God upon this earth. Not a demigod, not an angel, but God with a capital G. We call it the Incarnation: God as one of us, the Creator as a creature in Creation; the Infinite contained within the finite; the Absolute alive in failing flesh.

This is the message, the Good News, that John has hammered home, with every single chapter of His Gospel. Christ is the Light come down from heaven, the Word come down from heaven, the Bread come down from heaven, to live now inside us. And he really isn’t subtle. From the beginning, John identifies Jesus as the Word of God, the λόγος, which isn’t simply something that He says. Λόγος in Greek means reason, mind, principle, thought. Jesus is the Mind of God, the self-Image of God—which is another way of saying that He’s God. The Son is how the Father understands Himself.

But why has He come down? Why would God humiliate Himself by being human? I mean, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re all kind of a mess down here. And that of course is the point. Christ the Light has entered into darkness. He has come to give His life up for the world; to draw, when He is lifted up, all things unto Himself. Only God can join us to God. Christ has come, God has come, to bring us home in Him.

For the last five weeks, we have read together the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus’ scandalous teaching in the Gospel of John that His Body and His Blood nourish us with eternal life. The infinite life of the Father dwells within the Son. And the Son gives His life away, that He may now dwell within us. The word for life, the word for breath, is Spirit. The Spirit of God is the Life of God, the Life of Jesus Christ, and She now lives in us, making our bodies Her temple, making the Church Jesus’ Bride.

It is the Incarnation continued, broken open, poured out for us all. The sacred mysteries of the Church, the Holy Sacraments, exist to make this so, to impart the life of God to us. They are signs that contain the very things they signify. In Baptism, we are given Jesus’ Spirit and His Name; in Communion we are given both His Body and His Blood. And when we have the Name of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus, the Body and the Blood of Jesus—what does that make us? Who does that make us? It makes us Jesus! All of us, together.

Everything we do here is about becoming Jesus, first for one another, and then for all the world. We study His teachings. We tell His stories. We proclaim His forgiveness. We celebrate, every year, the cycle of His birth, ministry, death and Resurrection. This is what salvation is! It isn’t just a once-and-done immersion. It isn’t just the good works that we do. It isn’t just a mental box we check. Salvation is oneness in Christ! We are Jesus, we are becoming Jesus, and we will be Jesus, all of it by grace, all of it by faith. Because faith is simply trust in He whom God has sent. And the one whom God has sent is God.

Take My life within you, Jesus says. Eat of My Flesh, drink of My Blood, and breathe in My Spirit. Proclaim the Good News to the world! Heal the sick, feed the hungry, teach the ignorant, rebuke the sinner, speak truth to power, forgive the penitent, and raise all the dead from their graves. We are to continue this life of Jesus Christ in the here and now, within our own generation. Such is Christianity. Such is our salvation, which we offer for the world.

When we are one with God in Christ, we don’t dissolve away, as a drop within the ocean. Jesus does not rob us of identity; He makes us individuals at last. In Him we become fully human, fully whom we were each meant to be. We aren’t just deified; we are humanized. Jesus is humanity perfected, so that when God sees us He sees the Son of God. The Father looks at you and sees Jesus, because you are Jesus to Him.

Powerful stuff, scandalous stuff. Too much for many people. That God would stoop to humanity sounds preposterous; that He would raise humanity up to the divine, scandalous. And that’s why many people walk away. When Jesus finishes His Bread of Life Discourse within John’s Gospel, His disciples, the crowds who have thronged after Him throughout His ministry of healing, now turn back. They leave Him. This teaching is too much.

“It’s okay,” Jesus says. “No-one can come to Me unless it’s granted by My Father. One day, when the Son of Man is lifted up, I will draw all unto Myself. Yet for now, who will stay with Me? Who will continue along My Way? Whom has the Father called to the Son?” And Peter, on behalf of the Apostles replies, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. You are the Holy One of God.” Peter doesn’t always understand what Christ is saying. Yet even in his ignorance, he trusts the Son of God.

Judas doesn’t get it either. But rather than trusting in the grace and love of God, Judas will try to force Jesus’ hand. Instead of conforming himself to the life of Christ, he will attempt to bend Jesus to self-righteous expectations. Judas wants a messiah who will fight. And so he will attempt to force His hand, to put Jesus into conflict with authority, assuming He will raise the sword when faced with crucifixion. But Jesus will not be the christ we wanted; He can only be the Christ He truly is. Judas’ eyes were opened at the last.

Many disciples in the West have walked away from Christ, for various and sundry reasons: the politicizing of religion, and sacralizing of politics; the dissolution of local community, and resulting epidemic of loneliness; economic hardship, entertainment saturation, clerical hypocrisy, you name it. There’s really only one reason we should stick around. Jesus. Jesus is the only reason for any of us to be Christian, for any to come to the Church. Here we receive His forgiveness of our sins. Here we are fed by His Word. Here heaven stoops to grace us with the very Bread of Life, the Spirit and Body and Blood of the Son.

I know that we’re a mess, chief of sinners though I be. That’s kind of the point. God chooses the weak to shame the strong, the foolish to teach the wise. That’s why I’m up here. And that’s why He has brought you here as well. The Father has called you to His Son, called you to become His Son, all of us Jesus together, all in His Body the Church. He promises no successes, no glories, no fame here below. Quite the opposite in fact. In this world we are promised each a cross. For when you are Christ for the world, the world is a cross unto you.

But we must love them anyway, for that’s what Jesus does. That’s who Jesus is.

I promise you scandal. I promise you struggle. I promise you shame. For we are here to promise Jesus each to one another. And the Way of Jesus Christ is death in life and life in death. You have been called. You come. And so you are given: His Spirit, His Word, His Body and His Blood. You are given Jesus freely, that you may give Him freely away. Because that’s what God does, you understand: God gives us Jesus, gives us His Son, gives us Himself. And so when we then give Jesus to others, we are acting as God.

God became man, that man might become God. This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it? Do you also wish to go away?

Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that You are the Holy One of God.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout
Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RDGStout/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsqiJiPAwfNS-nVhYeXkfOA
X: https://twitter.com/RDGStout

St Peter’s Lutheran
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064841583987
Website: https://www.stpetersnymills.org/
Donation: https://secure.myvanco.com/L-Z9EG/home

Nidaros Lutheran
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074108479275
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026