 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
I love this simple yet profound Christmas message. That which we could only think about and imagine has become flesh, so that we can SEE glory, grace, and truth for ourselves. The incarnation is the most beautiful and most necessary of Christian truths. A God that is far away and cannot be known is worse than no God at all. It is like a beautifully wrapped present that we are not allowed to open, play with, or enjoy. Jesus faithfully showed us the Father. Now it’s our turn. The church is called the body of Christ because we represent God’s anointed one in the world. We are that which can be heard, which can be seen with the eye, which can be looked at and hands can touch. Represent, not like a salesman or even an ambassador, but represent like Jesus represented the Father, “an exact image of his being.” When the world looks at the church, they are supposed to be able to see Messiah and thus the Father. Not a religious idea, but the very character of God. This is one of the simplest reasons why the church must be diverse. A mono-ethnic community cannot express the character of God like a multi-ethnic one. It is not just the fact that our different cultures express the diversity and fullness of who God is. It is all those wonderful aspects of God’s character that find greatest expression in a diverse congregation: forgiveness, reconciliation, sacrificial love, and of course grace, to name a few. This is what the world is hungry for. This is what Jesus gave it- an authentic and clear image of who God is. This is what the church must BE today.-God in the flesh for the entire world to see.  In Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church, Soong-Chan Rah talks about the power of lament. “In his book of Lamentations, Jeremiah responds to the tragedy and suffering of the fallen city of Jerusalem. It is appropriate to lament a situation that is not a fulfillment of God’s plan of shalom for the world.”
In the U.S. we love stories of triumph and victory. Our movies reveal our expectation that even if our team is the worst at the start of the season, we can win the championship at the end with a lot of hard work and a little luck. “American history tends to be filled with a sense of triumphalism… There have been, however, times in American history for which we should recognize the need to lament… Celebration without suffering can become dysfunctional and provide a myopic view of God’s work.” Rah goes on to explain, “Cultural intelligence requires the understanding of history from the various perspectives and experiences. Focusing mainly on the history of the dominant culture in the United States is insufficient. We need to hear stories from other communities in order to gain a fuller understanding of how the gospel of Christ is at work throughout the whole range of cultures and ethnicities.” Unfortunately, many of these “stories” are not always happy ones. They may not fit our preference for triumph, success, and positivity. But they are still OUR stories. One of the things I love about the Bible is that it does not sweep under the rug faults, failures, and outright evil. It bares it all with raw honesty. It then invites us to respond with truth and honesty to these events and lament. Wailing over tragedy and loss is healthy and right. Jesus cried at Lazarus tomb even though he went there with the express purpose to “wake him up” (i.e.: raise him from the dead). Finding solutions to the problems we face does not eradicate the emotional side of suffering and pain. Yes, we should work to bring about changes to the causes of tragedy, but we should also lament at the tragic stories which form our collective past and loss we experience in the present. |
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