{"id":21926,"date":"2022-12-21T10:17:01","date_gmt":"2022-12-21T15:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21926"},"modified":"2022-12-21T10:22:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T15:22:53","slug":"21926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21926","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Phil Wickham - Behold (Official Music Video) ft. Anne Wilson\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6CP08HOcWGY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Incarnation at the Edge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In this Christmas homily,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Father Richard speaks of the surprising nature of Incarnation. We find God in all the places we don\u2019t expect.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see in the original Gospel stories of Jesus\u2019 birth that there\u2019s really nothing pretty about the first Christmas. The <strong>only way human beings can understand spiritual things is that they have to be presented in physical, material form<\/strong>. We can\u2019t get it otherwise. We have to see it and we have to touch it.\u00a0<em>How<\/em>\u00a0God comes into the world would also seem to be very important, as if to say to us: this is where God is to be found. The great question has always been, \u201cWhat is God? Who is God? Where is this God hiding?\u201d because initially, God isn\u2019t really obvious to most people. The <strong>mystery we celebrate at Christmas is saying that the divine has chosen its hiding place in the world, and it\u2019s in all material things<\/strong>. And that all becomes summed up now in the body of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where is this God being revealed? Not in the safe world, but at the edge, at the bottom, among those where we don\u2019t want to find God, where we don\u2019t look for God, where we don\u2019t expect God. The way we\u2019ve created Christianity, <strong>it seems like it\u2019s all about being nice, pretty, middle class, \u201cnormal\u201d and under the law. Here we have in the Gospel stories Jesus, Mary, and Joseph being none of those things<\/strong>. It might just be telling us we should be looking elsewhere. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Writer and organizer Kelley Nikondeha describes how the context of Jesus\u2019 birth demonstrates God\u2019s Incarnation amongst those who suffer and are oppressed:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;advent&nbsp;narratives&nbsp;demand&nbsp;we&nbsp;take&nbsp;the&nbsp;political&nbsp;and&nbsp;economic world of Roman Palestine seriously. The Gospel writers named the empires of Caesar and Herod not for dramatic effect; they didn\u2019t mention a census or massacre for literary flourish. The Gospel writers used contextual markers to describe in concrete ways the turmoil of the times that hosted the first advent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is this very context that makes the advent narratives contemporary\u2014whether in Israel-Palestine or lands beyond. Our troubled times, shaped by all manner of injustice, cause continued suffering, making the loud cries of lament and cries for peace timely, as they are answered by advent. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Incarnation positions Jesus among the most vulnerable people, the bereft and threatened of society. The first advent shows God wrestling with the struggles common to many the world over. And from this disadvantaged stance, Jesus lives out God\u2019s peace agenda as a counter-testimony to Caesar\u2019s peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is the story of advent: we join Jesus as incarnations of God\u2019s peace on this earth for however long it takes. God walks in deep solidarity with humanity, sharing in our sufferings and moments of hope. Amid our hardship, God is with us. Emmanuel remains the name on our lips in troubled times. <\/strong>[2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3-500x346.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21930\" width=\"839\" height=\"581\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3-500x346.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3-300x208.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3-768x532.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3-1536x1064.png 1536w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-3.png 1672w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 839px) 100vw, 839px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Incarnation at the Edge In this Christmas homily,&nbsp;Father Richard speaks of the surprising nature of Incarnation. We find God in all the places we don\u2019t expect.&nbsp; We see in the original Gospel stories of Jesus\u2019 birth that there\u2019s really nothing pretty about the first Christmas. The only way human beings can understand spiritual things is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21926"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21933,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21926\/revisions\/21933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}