Lesson 16: Incarnation

I always thought of myself as a member of the “theology of the cross” school. Paul and Kerry, through brief exchanges on this site, have helped me see the limitations of this tradition, how it has led too many people to put themselves down as contemptible sinners unworthy of God’s grace. At least in our time, speaking as if Christ’s dying on the cross is the one act by which God saves humankind, sounds like salvation is a legal contract or transaction rather than an ongoing loving covenant. A modern love narrative gives more weight to a theology of the Spirit that focuses on the Incarnation. It places the covenant between God and humanity into an ongoing historical context. That leads me to think that a modern love narrative needs to incorporate perspectives from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and especially to consider what it means when we claim that humans are created in the image of God. In order to do this, we shall find ourselves paying more attention to the Gospel according to John. From the get-go, John makes clear that he wants to identify Jesus as an incarnation of the divine. He sets out to do this by understanding Jesus as a personification of the logos, seemingly using Heraclitus’ description of the logos as the link between rational discourse and world’s rational structure. It is often described as the animating principle pervading the creation or the fundamental characteristic underlying everything. I hear it as a rhetorical term that lends itself to narrative. As such, it enables us to speak to one another and to God with understanding. It also provides the connection allowing us to understand the creation. Jesus, then, is the appearance of this rational structure in a human person, an incarnation of the logos. The “I am” statements found throughout John’s Gospel are not simply professions that Jesus is God, but also descriptions of the divine’s characteristics. John’s concern is not so much clarifying doctrine as laying out a way, truth, and life that offers harmony with the will of God and the conditions of the creation. This gospel places everything in the context of love. There is only one command in John’s book: love one another as I have loved you. The logos is love all the way down. God is love. Love makes the world go round. Jesus’ life epitomizes this kind of love. The crucifixion is defined as Jesus laying down his life in love for his friends. We become more human by becoming more loving, for true humanity is found in love. John focuses on God coming in Jesus to show us how to live and he does this by presenting love embodied in real life not rules or doctrines. Love always retains the ambiguity of life and words. The evangelist picks representative episodes in Jesus’ life and reports them as mysteries. His commentaries on them are hardly explanations as every one has layered meanings. Jesus’ love frees his followers to feed his sheep but does not offer specific directions about how to do this, relying instead primarily on living examples. I seemed to have heard the Gospel told in this narrative as long as I can remember, even though it sometimes got tangled up in my desire to be theologically correct. Nonetheless, reading The Brothers Karamazov was a clarifying experience. I think of passages such as the elder Zosimov quoting St. Isaac the Syrian: “What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them, the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation.”