God Made Meat

Last night I was discussing my faith with someone who described themselves as a non-believer. After thinking about it, she qualified it, realizing that she did in fact hold to a core belief in the goodness of people. I agree. In response, I described my faith in God as a faith in what is best in people. My faith, as a Christian, is a faith in a man who was the Son of God and one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. It is a faith in the story of God as a human, a God who shares in all our hopes, fears, joys, pains, and tears. My faith is incarnational.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. (Col. 1:15-16)

The incarnation is a tricky subject. If you go to the theology section of a library or the Christology (Christology: the technical term for discussion of the person of Christ and His theological import) section of a seminary library, you will find some of the most divisive theological tomes on this topic. The New Testament itself is more a record of the development of christological thinking than a definitive statement on it. The first 500 years of Christianity is, in part, one long discussion of who this person Jesus of Nazareth was and what his relationship to God as Father in the Holy Spirit meant.

What does Paul mean when he writes in Colossians that Christ is the image of God? He is most likely drawing on Jewish scriptural accounts of wisdom as the image of God and associating Jesus with God’s wisdom incarnate. The Pauline scholar J.D.G. Dunn suggests that when Paul writes, “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created,” he is placing Christ as the perfection of God’s intention in creation. That in Christ, God’s intentions for creation are realized. The word incarnate means “to be made meat or flesh”.

So I must agree. My faith is in the inherent goodness of people. My friend admitted that this faith in human goodness results in occasionally getting screwed. Of course. We sometimes fall short. In fact, we almost always fall short of the ideal. But perhaps this is what provides the very dynamic of creation. This yearning for the ideal of perfect love spins the planet, fuels the sun and feeds relationships. Christ’s faith was so true, so steadfast that he took it all the way to the cross, and in a place of ultimate abandonment and loneliness-- the pinnacle of getting screwed if you will-- he forgave. Then he surrendered.

Hmmm…