For those who might want to catch up with the Meaning of Life posts (they’re spread out over time), here are the links.
- Meaning of Life 1.0 – Intro
- Meaning of Life 1.1 – The Glory Before the Beginning
- Meaning of Life 1.2 – God Makes
- Meaning of Life 1.3 – The Initial Image
- Meaning of Life 1.4 – The Broken Heart
- Meaning of Life 1.5 – A Broken Maker
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INCARNATION
Invisible made visible. Immaterial finding expression in material. Idea taking physical, sensual form.
Again…making.
At the start, God makes a universe and a world. That world bears the marks of His glory, His character, His being. But it is not Him. The world’s essence, its beauty, its laws–physical and moral–spring from who He is, but it is not His Being in the flesh. Incarnation is at work in this initial act of creation, undoubtedly. God’s idea, His dream, His desire, His life…all of these somehow finding expression in His work of those six days, finding culmination in the creature He stamps with His image. Humanity, the most god-like of creation, God’s image setting these beings apart.
But the image gets damaged, all sinned-up, cracked, distorted…yet, the image remains. The image goes on making, laboring as intended, but now struggling against the entropy, the inertia, the reluctance of the ground, fury building, breaking into fouler incarnation, anger and hate emerging as words and blows meant to maim and kill. Division rules; every English Lit. class teaches it–man against man, man against nature, man against God, man against himself was the way I first heard it.
The whole world agrees…something is wrong.
Who will deliver us from this body of death? The Apostle Paul
The Romans 7 cry, universally understood…the cry of the race.
Now comes a new making. A pregnant mother, the common 9 months, the birth into humanity, and the Image of God comes again, but this time, all is intact, unbroken, untainted, the hovering Spirit of God bringing pure creation once more.
Invisible made visible. Word finding expression in material, namely, flesh. The Divine One taking physical, sensual form, walking, breathing, growing, learning, healing, changing, repairing, restoring…bringing transformation to the whole enterprise. The Messia–Yeshua (Jesus to the Greeks)–even takes the brokenness onto himself, allowing the malady to infect him and kill him, suffering humiliation, torture, and finally death in the process. After the dark of all this, the burial stone rolls back, and now it’s Death that’s cracked and busted, and “living water” pours into the world through the fissures. This living water, Jesus said, is the Spirit of the Living God, and once again, the connection between “Maker” and “made” comes back online. “Cool of the evening” walks with God are possible again. Making can take on new joy, new power, new life.
New life. Metabolism, through which the human being draws life from its very source.
That’s the story. Stewardship of time, energy, resources, and creativity as we walk through life in the company of God, made possible by His Living Word…is it much different from what Adam and Eve were told?
What if incarnation was the whole point to begin with? What if incarnation, the move from idea to form which sparks new ideas which lead to new forms–what if this process was the whole point? Could it be said that the meaning of life is found in incarnation, in creation, in making, especially when the essence being incarnated (made flesh) is God’s?
Again, it points to making–making life, love, moments, hope, newness, disciples, and possibility. Through the Incarnation of the Christ, life is saved, rescued, put back together. Could it be that meaning is found in joining just that enterprise, through making lives like His, or better yet, by allowing His life to empower ours, so that He, through us, can continue to save, rescue, and put back together through His Spirit, the same creative Spirit that was there at the beginning?
Sounds meaningful to me.
But there’s a problem…children of God are missing…
JEFF BERRYMAN 