Advent Love

I am a fan of Eugene Peterson. He is my mentor, at least in print. I met him once, recently, and told him so. He was very gracious and humble in his acceptance of my compliment.

Often Peterson writes about incarnation. He reminds us that God’s love is manifested not in wispy ideas and ungrounded spirituality, but in the real stuff of life. I quote:

"Matter is real. Flesh is good. Without a firm rooting in creation, religion is always drifting off into some kind of pious sentimentalism or sophisticated intellectualism. The task of salvation is not to refine us into pure spirits so that we will not be cumbered with this too solid flesh. We are not angels, nor are we to become angels. The Word did not become a good idea, or a numinous feeling, or a moral aspiration; the Word became flesh. It also becomes flesh. (The Contemplative Pastor, p. 68)"

Interesting that the Gospel of John begins with words that are intentionally used to bring to mind the opening story in Genesis. . . “in the beginning.” God created matter. And then, in God’s time, God becomes matter/flesh. The birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus are not to be understood as God pretending to be human, but as God taking on the very same humanity that you and I have to deal with. God’s intent is not to save us OUT of this world (as too many Christians suppose), but in order to redeem us IN THE MIDST of this world.

Thus, there is something holy about earth, wind and fire; about brambles, thistles and holly bushes; about flies, bees, and centipedes; about people, too – grandparents, sisters, and babies. So, Jesus comes as a baby. The incarnation of God’s love. Not in the abstract, but in the flesh. Jesus loves people in the flesh. He loves the poor and hungry (feeding the 5000). He loves the rich and misguided (Matthew, Zaccheus). He loves the prostitute into repentance and heals the leper into wholeness. Jesus has to put up with followers who misunderstand him, who fuss with each other, who are thorns in his side. Sounds like the church. There is nothing abstract about the way Jesus loves. He loves in the flesh with all its glory (and all its embarrassing and annoying aspects, too). As Peterson puts it, “Matter is real. Flesh is good.”

This is my fourth Advent word – Love. Love is real. Not like Charlie Brown who once said, “I love humanity, its people I can’t stand.” If we are to love like Jesus, then we will love people, in the flesh. Loving people is harder than loving humanity, but it is incarnational. It is earthy – grounded in the love God has for the world. Be thankful for God’s love that comes in the flesh, and not the abstract. That is the love that saves us in all our fleshly messiness.