The God Who Would Be Man

“The Incarnation is the central miracle asserted by Christians; they say that God became a man.” —CS Lewis

Matthew and Luke explain Jesus’ entry into the world as a virgin birth, or more correctly, a virgin conception, for it was Jesus’ conception and not his birth that was unique. Mary was a normal woman in every way and Jesus’ gestation and birth was normal in every way that matters. But his conception was unique for he had no human father. As the old text puts it, Mary “had never known a man.” 

Mary herself was concerned with this question, for nothing in her schooling necessarily led her to the expectation that Messiah would be virgin born. Isaiah's prophecy—“A virgin shall conceive..." (Isaiah 7:14)—did not necessarily raise this expectation. The word Isaiah used, “almah” means “a young woman of marriageable age.” Originally it may have referred to Isaiah's wife who was not a virgin. (She had already borne children.) Matthew, following the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, translates and interprets Isaiah's prophecy with the Greek word, pathenos, a Greek word that is not ambiguous and unequivocally means "virgin" (Matthew 1:14). 

“How can this be?” she asked the angel, who then explained, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:34, 35). This is a great mystery.

Every conception, of course, is mystery. No woman ever conceived a child, no mare a foal, no doe a fawn apart from God. But once, for a very special purpose, God dispensed with natural process and a long line of descendants. With his naked hand he touched Mary's womb and made a wee bairn who was…well, himself. 

Here’s where clinical explanations falter. I can only say is what the first writers said: the child was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). This was inexplicable then as now, and yet was acceptable, a staunch belief enshrined in the earliest creeds, a fundamental test of doctrinal orthodoxy. Today it stands at the center of our faith.

“But does it matter?” you ask. Of course it does. “All this took place,” Matthew informs us, “to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  ‘The young woman will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means (Matthew translates), ‘God (is) with us’” (Matthew 1:23). 

God is with us. That’s what the virgin birth meant and still means. This is an answer to the old question: Does God care? Does disease, pain, infirmity, handicap and death overwhelm him as much as it does us? Does God weep? Does it matter to him that babies are hooked on drugs and infected by AIDs in utero? Dostoyevsky’s cynic, Ivan, asks of human suffering, “What do the children have to do with it?” Does it matter to God that children suffer? 

The answer is the Incarnation, for in it we see the compassion and the love of God. In this act God entered fully into our suffering. Pain was his lot in the slow ascent from a struggling, kicking embryo to an utterly dependent baby, through gangling, awkward adolescent to young manhood. Throughout, he was a “man of sorrows.” Through all, he was “acquainted with our grief.” “In all our afflictions he was afflicted.” Indeed God understands; he cares as no other.

Dorothy Sayers says it far better than I: “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever the game he is playing with His creation, He has kept his own rules and played fair.  He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself.  He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death.  When He was a man, He played the man.  He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.” 

Jesus’ conception, though one of a kind, is timelessly typical of what is eternally true of God. He “never undoes anything but evil, never does good to undo it again. The union between God and (human) nature in the person of Christ admits no divorce. He will not go out of nature again…” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p. 124). He has always been and will always be Immanuel: God with us.

David Roper

Just for You: Beloved

Christmas Reflections: Waiting

11.30.18

Good Morning, Friends,

I love Christmas. It seems I always have. The reds, the greens, the lights and trees, the packages and cards, the music, decorations and festivities. The gathering of friends and family and the laughter and the surprises all can put a spring in my step and a smile in my life. I love the preparation and the anticipation. 

This year as I put away our fall trappings and the house was waiting for its Christmas dressing, I began to think of my Christmas heart as well as my Christmas house.  What would fill my heart this year at Christmas?  I took this to be a whisper from God, a good and godly question. And so as I heard the question, I was nudged to wait on the Lord for Him to tell me His plan, rather than to rush into my plans and preparations. 

As I sat with the Lord in stillness, I asked Him to show me His plans for me this Christmas. And I waited, counting on His presence and His caring. 

“Come, follow me,” is the first thing the Holy Spirit reminded me of that morning. Jesus invited His disciples to follow Him and He was inviting me to follow Him into my Christmas, both preparations and anticipations.

I wanted to do that, to follow Him So I questioned Him again, “Lord, what does that mean for me today and into this season?”

Very clear the answer came: “I want you to have a heart like Mine. A heart of compassion, mercy, reaching out, kindness, caring and freely giving. And I want you to start right behind your own front door. I want you to show My heart by your attitudes and actions to David. This is where I want your Christmas to begin as you follow Me. Then I want you to take this Heart of Mine with you out to your neighbor, that is anyone who I put into your day. ”

Other things came to mind that Jesus would want for me as I approached Christmas—

~a peaceful spirit, especially when things do not go my way,

 ~a focus on the Person this season is all about, 

~a priority of still time listening to His word and talking with Him, so that I can then practice His presence all day long, 

~a forgiving heart as I have been forgiven and so many more ways I can show Christmas in my home and to others.

 

I have found that when I am listening carefully He will show me step-by-step and day-by–day how I can follow Him. He will do the same for you this Christmas if that is what you desire.

Next I remembered that Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing.” Even at Christmas. Oh I can make a list, and order on Amazon, I can “set around” the pretties and color my home with red and green. I might even find a Christmas sweater that isn’t ugly! I could even “eat, drink and be merry.” For a time.  

But without Him I can do nothing that will last, nothing that will matter in the end. 

I cannot love over the long haul and in His way.

I cannot have peace that passes understanding.

I cannot heal another’s hurting heart.

I cannot have deep joy that goes deeper than the grief this world brings.

I cannot take away my guilt and shame just by looking the other way.

I cannot give hope that is not uncertain.

But He can! And as I draw near to Him, accepting His invitation and His gifts, as I bring Him into my day, my struggles and my delights, as I learn to trust His mighty hand and His generous heart, His timing and His mysteries, as I depend on Him who is the Living God and whose Spirit lives in my heart, by His grace I can shine a bit of His glory and goodness in a hurting world this Christmas. I can accept His invitation to “Come, follow Me.” And by my words and my life I can in small ways point others to the One who so loves, who came and is still present.

Come, follow Me.

Without Me you can do nothing.

This is how I began my Christmas this year.  As I waited in stillness and anticipation for His best for me this year, I heard His gentle guidance from His word for my Christmas heart. I encourage you to stop and wait on the Lord as you ask Him in stillness His plans for your heart and your hands this Christmas. It could be your best Christmas ever.

With love and always delighted to hear the thoughts God whispers to you,

Carolyn Roper

Playing Second Fiddle

It's said that the hardest instrument to play is second fiddle. I thought of that old adage this morning as I read Saint Jude's letter.

I noticed that Jude never mentions the fact that he was Jesus' brother, though clearly he was a sibling (1Corinthians 9:5). (Our Catholic friends regard him as Jesus' older half-brother, Joseph's son by a prior marriage.) 

Jude describes himself as a "bond servant" of Jesus and "the brother of James," who was Jesus' brother, but he never mentions the fact that he was part of the family. Not even once—unlike Diotrephes, a contemporary Church leader "who loved to be first" (3John 9,10), and who went on to achieve prominence in the worst sort of way. He became a heretical gnostic bishop.

It’s hard to be overlooked and undervalued—when someone gets the credit for something we've done, or someone less qualified gains prominence and is promoted over us. We're told that Jesus honors those who "take" the lower seat, but we do get our knickers in a twist when someone gives it to us.

Those are the days that we have to look to Jesus, who was himself "despised and rejected," and ask him for the grace to stay at our post and carry on—joyfully, dutifully—and to do so out of our love for him. It's not easy, but that's how we learn to play second fiddle. 

David Roper

12.8.18

Walk On

“O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” (The angel) said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand: From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days. Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days (Daniel 12:8-12).

Daniel asked, "What shall be the end (Hebrew: “the afterward”) of all these things" (i.e., “How long will our troubles last?”) The angel answered with numbers, typical of the cryptic nature of the book: “The end will come in 1290 days, plus 45 days.”

Uh, ‘scuse me?

Commentators have tried to make sense of these numbers for 2500 years or more, in general taking them to refer to the last days of the Greek king, Antiochus IV who, in a fit of pique desecrated the temple in Jerusalem by sacrificing a pig on the altar and burning the sacred scrolls. 

Most interpreters try to fit the “days” into the period between this desecration (the so-called, “Abominable Desolation”) and the rededication of the temple under the Maccabees, but the problem, without going into detail, is simply that the numbers don’t work. Perhaps someday we’ll uncover other data that will enable us to work with these numerical parameters, though we must remember that the angel did inform Daniel that “the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.”  

In the meantime, while the experts try to work out the problems of this text, can we not see here a gentle admonition to endure hardship joyfully, confidently, hopefully for days and days and days and then for a few days more? Did not Jesus pronounce a special blessing on those who keep on keeping on to the end (Matthew 24:45. 46).

In that spirit, then, there’s a word for old Daniel...and for you and for me: "As for you, go your way (“walk on”) to the end. And then you shall rest and stand in your allotted place at the end of the days" (Daniel 2:13).

Walk on, despite the moral darkness that surrounds you. Walk on, though your days are weary and long. Walk on thri=ough grief, fear, pain and loss. Walk on, “one foot up and one foot down: this is the way to London Town,” and to Heaven and to your eternal inheritance. And then, you will rest. 

“Those who are wise will understand” (12:8).

Up-Hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 

   Yes, to the very end. 

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? 

   From morn to night, my friend. 

But is there for the night a resting-place? 

   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 

May not the darkness hide it from my face? 

   You cannot miss that inn. 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? 

   Those who have gone before. 

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? 

   They will not keep you standing at that door. 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? 

   Of labour you shall find the sum. 

Will there be beds for me and all who seek? 

   Yea, rest for all who come. —Christine Rossetti

David Roper

12.4.18

Well Done!

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2Timothy 4:7)

Lynden High School, where our son Brian teaches and coaches, lost the Washington State football championship title game yesterday in a hard-fought battle. (Their opponent, Hockinson was 26-0 over the past two years.) 

I sent Brian a text to commiserate and received a typically laconic reply: "Kids battled." 

No blame: “You missed the extra point that would have won the game!" "You failed to block the guy that deflected the PAT!" Just praise for the things that could be praised.

We'll never hear harsh words of condemnation from our Lord if we have hidden ourselves in him. When he comes and we stand before him he will not point to our win and loss column, nor will he analyze and criticize our performance. I think he will say something like, "You battled! You fought the good fight.”

Life is a relentless struggle with a fierce, unyielding foe, devoted to our destruction. There'll be a few good wins, and some heart-breaking losses—God knows—but when we stand before him in the merits of his Son there'll be no recrimination or blame. We will each "receive his praise" (1Corinthians 4:5).

David Roper

12.2.18

His-story

British historian Arnold Toynbee's history of the world spanned 12 volumes. The prophet Daniel covered the same material in one sentence: "Four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever" (Daniel 7:17,18).

There you have it. The sweep of history in 22 words (in his Aramaic text): Four great kingdoms will rise and fall until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, who then will reign forever and ever (Revelation 11:15).

Interpretations of Daniel's vision are legion, but most commentators identify the four beasts in Daniel's scenario as the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman empires, the four great powers that occupied the world stage before and after Daniel's day. The difficulty comes with the forth beast and the longevity of the Roman Empire. Some say we are living today in the remnants of the Roman world. (Western Civilization is essentially Roman.) Others say that Daniel's vision refers solely to historical Rome. 

I have my own thoughts, but I’ll spare you for it's all too easy to get lost in apocalyptic clutter and miss the point of Daniel's history. His pastoral purpose in reporting his vision was not to give us a historical time-line, but to free us from fear, to assure us that history is his (God's) story written by his finger from beginning to end and that history will end in the eventual triumph of God. 

Certainly there will be opposition to God's rule, and it may appear at times that the other side is winning, but "the Most High" is in control, even when his opponents seem most successful (7:24,25). 

No kingdom and no ruler is running amuck—not one. Authority is not "taken" by men, but "given" by God, a phrase that occurs often in Danial's revelation. Though lawless men and nations rise and fall, God “controls their rage and fury, so his children need not fear.”

Here we have the key to human history which, if taken to heart will free us from the anxiety and hysteria that pervades our society and, more's the pity, some elements of the Church. 

The media exacerbate our fears as night after night they stream bad news into our ears, but we need not fear "evil tidings" (Psalm 112:7). The story will end in God's glory. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and we will reign with him forever, forever and ever.

Know well my soul, God's hand controls

whate'er you fear.

Round Him in calmest music rolls

whate'er you hear.

—FB Meyer

David Roper

11.30.18 

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait."—John Milton

Former Los Angeles Dodger radio broadcaster Vin Scully gave currency to the last line of Milton’s poem by intoning it over players that were out of the game: "They also serve who only stand and wait." It's a useful idea for those of us who are getting along in years.

Milton asks, "Why This blindness, this inability to exercise my poetic talent and serve my Maker?” We ask, "Why this limitation, this inability to use the talent that God has given me." When He comes and asks for an accounting will he chide?"

Patience, that great teacher of the soul, answers, "God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts.” God has thousands of agents to do his bidding. He doesn't need my talent. 

How then can I serve him? "Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best." Mild yoke? Indeed, his yoke is easy for it rests on his shoulders as well as mine. His burden is light.  

So this is our task in our latter years: Not to "speed And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest," but to stand and to wait: to watch and to pray, to love and to be.

Such "quietism," as some would have it, "hastens" Jesus' coming. What greater service can we render to our Master? (2Peter 3:11) 

David Roper