<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us\u201d (John 1:14). The Word who is Life, the Word who is Light, has become \u201cflesh.\u201d<\/p>\n The Christmas message, embodied in one word, is that the Word becomes Flesh. Real, breathing, skin-covered humanity as the Act of Redemption begins to unroll before our eyes.<\/p>\n One word: Incarnation. God becomes human and, to quote Eugene Peterson, \u201cmoves into the neighborhood.\u201d God becomes what we are \u2014 humans \u2014 so that we might become what he is.<\/p>\n Here is absolute identity: God has become what we are. (God does not \u201cappear\u201d to be human or \u201cget transfigured into the physical\u201d \u2014 both of these deny absolute identity with humannness.\u201d)<\/p>\n Here is absolute transformation: God becomes what we are, not to show that it can be done, but to take up our case, our being, our \u201ccracked Eikon-ness.\u201d Here the Crackedness begins to back up, to roll back its curse and its pain and its sin.<\/p>\n Here is absolute promise: God becomes what we are as a gift so that we, by taking in this Word-now-flesh (think eucharist as well) might become what God wants us to be: God\u2019s children.<\/p>\n Flesh matters. God doesn\u2019t redeem only our spirits or our souls or our minds. He becomes fully what we are: flesh-and-blood humans. So that all of our human condition might be redeemed.<\/p>\n Becoming Flesh is the Point of New Creation. The New Creation is the Incarnation, and all those who are in the Incarnate One are in the New Creation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us\u201d (John 1:14). The Word who is Life, the Word who is Light, has become \u201cflesh.\u201d The Christmas message, embodied in one word, is that the Word becomes Flesh. Real, breathing, skin-covered humanity as the Act of Redemption begins to unroll before our eyes. One word: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1749],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"\n