In the Flesh
You may remember this one from last year, but it fits what I want to talk about this morning. And I loved reading it again. I hope you do, too…
It punctures my ego (which is often ripe for deflation) to be researching for a message and to find that this same message has already been written and in a much better way than I could hope to myself. That was the case here. I found this quote from Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle in Time, and I just had to share it. It originally appeared in her book, Bright Evening Star. I hope you’ll spend some time dwelling on it this morning in preparation for a time of worship:
“Don’t try to explain the incarnation to me! It is further from being explainable than the furthest star in the furthest galaxy. It is love, God’s limitless love enfleshing that love into the form of a human being, Jesus, the Christ, fully human and fully divine.
Was there a moment, known only to God when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love in to the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?
Power. Greater power than we can imagine, abandoned, as the Word knew the powerlessness of the unborn child, still unformed, taking up almost no space in the great ocean of amniotic fluid, unseeing, unhearing, unknowing. Slowly growing, as any human embryo grows, arms and legs and a head, eyes, mouth, nose, slowly swimming into life until the ocean in the womb is no longer large enough, and it is time for birth.
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ the Maker of the universe or perhaps many universes, willingly and lovingly leaving all that power and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years to show us what we ought to be and could be. Christ came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, wholly human and wholly divine, to show us what it means to be made in God’s image.”
You may remember this one from last year, but it fits what I want to talk about this morning. And I loved reading it again. I hope you do, too…
It punctures my ego (which is often ripe for deflation) to be researching for a message and to find that this same message has already been written and in a much better way than I could hope to myself. That was the case here. I found this quote from Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle in Time, and I just had to share it. It originally appeared in her book, Bright Evening Star. I hope you’ll spend some time dwelling on it this morning in preparation for a time of worship:
“Don’t try to explain the incarnation to me! It is further from being explainable than the furthest star in the furthest galaxy. It is love, God’s limitless love enfleshing that love into the form of a human being, Jesus, the Christ, fully human and fully divine.
Was there a moment, known only to God when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love in to the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?
Power. Greater power than we can imagine, abandoned, as the Word knew the powerlessness of the unborn child, still unformed, taking up almost no space in the great ocean of amniotic fluid, unseeing, unhearing, unknowing. Slowly growing, as any human embryo grows, arms and legs and a head, eyes, mouth, nose, slowly swimming into life until the ocean in the womb is no longer large enough, and it is time for birth.
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ the Maker of the universe or perhaps many universes, willingly and lovingly leaving all that power and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years to show us what we ought to be and could be. Christ came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, wholly human and wholly divine, to show us what it means to be made in God’s image.”