Becoming Human: Discovering Christ

The mystery of the incarnation is a thought that hardly goes through the minds of individuals through the "holiday" season. Where is Christ? Christ is where we are weak, vulnerable and dependent. Christ is where the poor are, the hungry, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. How can we come to know to Christ when our focus is constantly on other maters, on school, influence, personal appearance, and power. Our faithfulness is dependent on our ability to go where there brokenness, loneliness and human need. In doing that we will be able to see Christ in humanity. This is truly what it means to become human in Christ. Seeing Christ in others is seeing the incarnate Lord. It was through the Logos (word) taking flesh that allowed humanity to see Christ in everyone. Unfortunately, society has packaged humanity into taxi drivers, doctors, engineers or whatever else it might be that we want them to be.  We do not see humanity anymore. We see packages who can help us "only". 

If the Church has a future it must be one that deals with the humanity and not how the best serves it. Everyone within the church is seriously searching to live and grow in this belief, that if we live together within the community and see each other as friends within the church then this is what it means to live and to be united in Christ. The only way to stay well in the midst of the many "worlds" is to stay close to the community and remain small. When we see our own brokenness and vulnerability then we forget who we are not being able to see our own brokenness through the "bigness" we build around us. Often it is by seeing the brokenness of others do we realize our own brokenness and that by realizing that we are all broken then Christ is the true human that became incarnate for all of humanity. Once we discover the joy and the care of humanity, only then will we be able to rejoice in Christ and realize that Christ incarnation was not meant to be only for "ME" but rather as the redemption for all humanity.

Remember this time of the year as a time that Christ become incarnate not for "you" and "me" but for the entire community coming together seeing Christ in all of humanity. Seeing Christ is seeing our true selves in doing so showing what it means to truly become united in Christ. As St. Athanasius famously wrote in his master piece "On the Incarnation" God became man so that man might become god." (CH.54).