An Incarnational Mission

This Christmas season I have been struck in a fresh way by the incarnation of Christ.  Truly as a Christian I so often like to distance myself from the implication of what Christ did and how it should affect my life and ministry personally.  I love to sing, "Silent Night" and "Joy to the world the Lord has come", but always keeping myself removed from what this model of incarnation means now that I profess Christ as Lord and desire to take up my cross and follow.  Let us think for a moment what happened at the incarnation before I attempt to apply it.  What a more profound and glorious passage than Philippians chapter 2 verse 5-8 to teach us this?

"Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant [this word in the Greek really means "slave"], being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

For us as finite, fallen humans we can not even begin to comprehend what the extent of that humility was for Christ.  How can we ever measure the glory that he left for a season to come as a man?  I heard a man compare it to us humbling ourselves to a rat in order to let them beat, curse and finally crucify us for their salvation!  How grotesque that seems to our pride, but truly that would only scratch the surface of what Christ did in coming as man.  Oh what a faithful and glorious high priest we have!

Now to apply it...

I am want to borrow a few thoughts from John Stott's book, "The Living Church", as it has challenged me greatly over this holiday season.  He writes,

"On the one hand we are called out of the world to belong to God, and on the other we are sent back into the world to witness and to serve. Moreover, the mission of the church is modeled on the mission of Christ. He himself said so. 'As the Father has sent me, I am sending you' (John 20:21).  His mission meant for him the incarnation.  He did not stay in the safe immunity of his heaven. Instead he emptied himself of his glory and humbled himself to serve."  and "All authentic mission is incarnational mission".

While we love to talk and sing about the incarnation of Christ, and so we should!, and yet we are so slow to hear his words ringing through the ages..."As the Father has sent me, I am sending you".  Obviously this can begin to apply in a million different ways.  It has implications for us personally, the way I relate to my wife, my children, my parents, my siblings, my neighbour.  Will I humble myself and seek to truly enter into their world of struggle and pain and die to my own rights and agenda and simply seek to be poured out as a drink offering for there sake to the glory and praise of God?

How about for us as churches.  We will be content to run our programs, puff ourselves up with knowledge and continue to to point a mocking finger at our world and culture as it slowly slips in to spiritual and moral destruction?  Not that I want to belittle the need for fellowship, teaching and preaching, but we must keep it in perspective.  For we are not called to simply be fed and then lie down our heads to sleep, but to go and take the hope in these jars of clay to a lost and dying world.

I pray that we might model the incarnation in our daily lives as people bought with the precious blood of Christ.  For what kind of slaves would we be if we refuse to offer our lives and enter the worlds of others when our glorious King and Saviour displayed the greatest humility and grace in his coming for us? May our lives model an incarnational mission.