Wonder Of Advent #27

The Place of Presence

Read: John 1:1-14

The Word became human and made his home among us. . . . And we have seen his glory.

John 1:14

“WE HAVE SEEN HIS GLORY.” That is the testimony of someone who witnessed Jesus in the flesh and concluded that he had to have been the creative force that laid the foundation of the world. The Word that was there at the beginning, the logos that undergirds all of creation, the wisdom that holds the universe together entered into human flesh and made his home among us. Literally, he set up his residence among us, pitched his tent as the place of God’s presence, just as the Tabernacle connected God with those in the wilderness long ago. This human being was more than human. He was—and is—deity incarnate, the intersection of heaven and earth.

The Incarnation was a unique event in the sense that there are no more virgin births on the horizon and Jesus was born of God’s seed in a way that no one else is. But we miss out on a lot when we see Christ as the great exception rather than the great example. He was the prototype of more to come, a merging of heaven and earth that is replicated every time someone is born of his Spirit by faith. The Spirit comes into the flesh whenever we open ourselves to his work and allow him to fill us. Remarkable? Yes. But so was the sacred life formed in a young Jewish girl, the beginning of a plan for the ages. It was a picture of things to come.

God has promised to fill the earth with his glory. Whatever was lost in humanity’s fall is being restored. God designated a Tabernacle as his dwelling place in the wilderness, then a Temple in the time of David and Solomon, and then a rebuilt Temple after captivity—all of which echo the story of Eden as the first place of his special presence in this world. But God’s ultimate plan was not to inhabit gardens or buildings at all; it was to inhabit his people as a whole, and you individually—which is why you were made in his image in the first place. Those who believe in him are to be filled with him. The true temple of his presence is made not of building blocks but of living stones. He inhabits redeemed humanity. You are a carrier of his presence, a vessel of glory, today’s intersection between heaven and earth.

Prayer

Lord, show me what it means to embody heaven and earth, to live in both spiritual and material realms, to walk here and now in the light of eternity. Renew me, recreate me from within, fill me daily with your divine life. Amen.

REFLECTION

Think of how Mary must have felt with the incarnation of God within her. Can we feel that same sense of sacredness carrying his Spirit within us? Why or why not?

Further reading: Colossians 1:27

O my deare heart, young Jesu sweit [sweet],

prepare thy creddil [cradle] in my spreit [spirit].

“BALULALOW,” JAMES, JOHN, AND ROBERT WEDDERBURN