{"id":24597,"date":"2024-12-27T10:46:36","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T15:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24597"},"modified":"2024-12-27T10:46:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T15:46:36","slug":"holy-incarnation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24597","title":{"rendered":"Holy Incarnation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Divine in This and in Us<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Casting Crowns - Jesus, Friend Of Sinners (with lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rJXIugwiN7Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Friday, December 27, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard identifies God\u2019s presence with us\u2014right here, right now\u2014in an embodied way.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Most religious people I\u2019ve met\u2014from sincere laypeople to priests and nuns\u2014still imagine God to be elsewhere. Before we can take the \u201cnow\u201d seriously, we must shift from thinking of God as \u201cout there\u201d to also knowing God \u201cin here.\u201d In fact<em>,<\/em>\u00a0<em>here<\/em>\u00a0is the best access point! Only inner experience can bring healing to the human-divine split.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Transformation comes by realizing our union with God right here, right now\u2014regardless of any performance or achievement on our part.<\/strong> That\u2019s the core meaning of grace, and we have to\u202f<em>know<\/em>\u00a0this for ourselves. No one can do this knowing for us. I could say as many times as I want that <strong>God is not elsewhere and heaven is not later, but until someone comes to personally and regularly experience that, they will not believe it.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authentic Christianity overcame the \u201cGod-is-elsewhere\u201d idea in at least two major and foundational ways. Through the incarnation, God in Jesus became flesh;<strong> God visibly moved in with the material world to help us overcome the illusion of separation (John 1:14). Secondly, God as Holy Spirit is precisely known as an indwelling and vitalizing presence. By itself, intellectual assent to these two truths does little. <\/strong>The incarnation and I<strong>ndwelling Spirit are known only through participation and practice, as we actively draw upon such Infinite Sources. Think of it as a \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d situation!<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good theology helps us know that we can fully trust the \u201cnow\u201d because of the incarnation and the Spirit within us. I hope it doesn\u2019t shock anyone to hear me say this: it\u2019s like making love. We can\u2019t be fully intimate with someone through vague, amorphous energy; we need close, concrete, particular connections. That\u2019s how our human brains are wired.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus teaches and is himself a message of now-ness, here-ness, concreteness, and this-ness. <strong>Virtually the only time Jesus talks about future time is when he tells us not to worry about it (see Matthew 6:25\u201334). <\/strong>Don\u2019t worry about times and seasons, don\u2019t worry about when God will return, don\u2019t worry about tomorrow. <strong>Thinking about the future keeps us in our heads, far from presence\u2014with God, with ourselves, and with each other. Jesus talks about the past in terms of forgiving it. Jesus tells us to hand the past over to the mercy and action of God. [1]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full and participatory meaning of Christmas is that <strong>this one universal mystery of divine incarnation is also intended for us and continues in us! It is not just about trusting the truth of the body of Jesus, but trusting its extension through the ongoing Body of Christ\u2014w<\/strong>hich is an even bigger act of faith, hope, and love and which alone has the power to change history, society, and all relationships. <strong>To only hold a mental belief in Jesus as the \u201cChild of God\u201d has little or no effect in the real world. [2]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Skye Jethani<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dec 27, 2024<br>The Idol of Status: Choosing Humility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I first encountered the writings of Henri Nouwen as a college student in the mid-1990s. Up to that time, <strong>my vision of the Christian life had been deeply formed and influenced by American culture. This meant my faith was an odd amalgamation of the Bible and American values like individualism, consumerism, and entrepreneurialism. For this reason, I assumed God called every Christian to a life of ever-increasing influence and impact, and those Christians who achieved the most for God were to be most celebrated. <\/strong>That is how status was measured in the American Christian subculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the voice of a Dutch Roman Catholic priest entered my world and quietly began to dismantle those assumptions. Henri Nouwen was unlike any Christian leader I had encountered before. He was not dynamic in his speaking, evangelical in his theology, or entrepreneurial in his ministry like the mega-pastors that dominated the 1990s, and <strong>Nouwen spoke far more about intimacy with God than impacting the world for him.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond his very unfamiliar way\u2014at least to me\u2014of framing the Christian life, I was inspired by Nouwen\u2019s own story. Despite his focus on the inner life of the soul, <strong>Nouwen lived with deep insecurities and an insatiable need for approval\u2014shortcomings he acknowledged and wrote about transparently. He struggled with depression and anxiety, and while his drive for significance landed him a professorship at Harvard University, the cost to his health nearly killed him. Nouwen was a paradox; a living contradiction\u2014and therefore a Christian mentor I could relate with.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what caught my imagination most was Nouwen\u2019s decision to abandon his post at Harvard at the height of his success and influence. Rather than represent the way of Jesus at the very top of the ivory tower, he became a pastor and caregiver at L\u2019Arche, a home for mentally disabled adults. <strong>By moving from Harvard to L\u2019Arche, Nouwen willingly left everything the world esteems to be counted among those the world ignores. His life of downward mobility not only contradicted the popular American narrative of success, influence, and ever-increasing impact, it also confronted my immature assumption that God always calls us to more power and more influence, and never less. Nouwen both exposed and denounced my idol of status.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s appropriate to reflect on Henri Nouwen\u2019s story this week because it so obviously parallels Jesus\u2019 story. <strong>The incarnation is about downward mobility, of Jesus\u2019 choice to exchange the glories of divinity for the obscurities of humanity, ultimately accepting the indignities of the cross.<\/strong> Like Nouwen, Christmas reminds us that <strong>God\u2019s kingdom is more easily discovered among those at the bottom, and is often rejected by those at the top. And the incarnation confronts our American values of \u201cmore,\u201d \u201cgreater,\u201d and \u201cbigger,\u201d by reminding us that the way of Jesus is about the status we surrender not the status we achieve.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">DAILY SCRIPTURE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__withgoddaily.us2.list-2Dmanage.com_track_click-3Fu-3D87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9-26id-3D1c06e18277-26e-3De48afdddbb&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&amp;r=hJuMypTcrkRR03PNPiS4CRT5LSpr1w5hmPCN5qMPuH0&amp;m=zyHm8tIhDRFcjxEvUsA8x9CaU38ztNstEX4JpC64NVWfnXO95-0AdoVeYCpPu_2f&amp;s=ll0x29dsjYVeBtaWJ7prKkHb9HleVULh1hMIpgUE_eY&amp;e=\">Philippians 2:5-11<br>John 1:1-14<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WEEKLY PRAYER<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Soren Kierkegaard (1813\u20131855)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>O Lord Jesus Christ, I long to live in your presence, to see your human form and to watch you walking on earth. I do not want to see you through the darkened glass of tradition, nor through the eyes of today\u2019s values and prejudices. I want to see you as you were, as you are, and as you always will be. I want to see you as an offense to human pride, as a man of humility, walking amongst the lowliest of men, and yet as the savior and redeemer of the human race.<br>Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Divine in This and in Us Friday, December 27, 2024 Father Richard identifies God\u2019s presence with us\u2014right here, right now\u2014in an embodied way.&nbsp;&nbsp; Most religious people I\u2019ve met\u2014from sincere laypeople to priests and nuns\u2014still imagine God to be elsewhere. Before we can take the \u201cnow\u201d seriously, we must shift from thinking of God as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24598,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions\/24598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}