What if God was One of Us?
- davidwperk
- Jan 8, 2024
- 7 min read
Devotional Reflection, Monday, January 8, 2024
The week of the first Sunday after Epiphany
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. . . . 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 943)
AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM Psalm 4, 7
Gen. 2:4-9(10-15)16-25; Heb. 1:1-14; John 1:1-18
Today we celebrate the Feast of Harriet Bedell. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
Pop singer Joan Osborne sings a song entitled “One of Us,” in which she asks, ““What if God Was One of Us?” And, actually God IS one of us, according to today’s Gospel. +
At several points in the Great Thanksgiving in the Book of Common Prayer, we use the word “incarnation” to refer to Jesus’ coming among us. In Prayer B, “. . . in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary. . . “ In Prayer D, “Father, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us . . . . “
Prayer A expresses the idea without the word: “Father, . . . you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us. . . . “ Our theological term for this is “incarnation,” based on the Latin word carncaro – flesh plus the preposition in. Literally, it means to “be made flesh.” Jesus was God the Son made flesh in a human life.
Our supplementary Eucharistic Prayers capture this about Jesus in various ways. Prayer 1 says, “Then, in the fullness of time, you sent your eternal Word,made mortal flesh in Jesus. Born into the human family,and dwelling among us,he revealed your glory.” Prayer 3 puts it this way. “Of your grace, you gave Jesusto be human, to share our life, to proclaim the coming of your holy reign and give himself for us, a fragrant offering.”#
Today’s Gospel and today’s epistle (Hebrews 1:1-14, along with passages in Hebrews 2, Philippians 2 and Colossians 1 and 2) provide the primary biblical texts on which this idea rests. John 1:14 reads, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Verse 18 reads, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”
Jesus’ followers and those who witnessed his ministry never regarded him as more than a human being. And, his followers were radical Jewish monotheists. They reflected on his life and teachings after the resurrection and came to the remarkable conviction that his life could not be explained fully within the categories available to them. The release of the Spirit among t hem brought Jesus’ recognizable presence to them, flaming their expanded vision of his identity.
Without detracting from the real human nature of his life and their experience of him, they began to worship him and to pray to God through him. That was a dramatic development for these radical monotheists. (For hints about that process of reflection and development, see Matthew 28:16-20; John 8:48-59; 14:15-31.)
Anglican New Testament scholar, the late John A. T. Robinson caught this idea in the title of his book about Jesus, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973). Jesus, God’s incarnate Son, brings God into our experience but he also brings our experience as human beings into the divine.
We are no longer ever alone or misunderstood. God went to the ultimate extreme to bring us back to Godself from our perpetual wanderings. In Christ, God understands us and enters into our experience. And, that same Jesus lives in us, filling our lives with God’s presence and bringing Jesus oneness with God into our experience. As John put it in verse 13, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (See the full text of the Gospel below.)
Please consider this statement from John Dunne, one of my favorite writers, who uniquely combines insights from psychology and theology. (Pubished before we learned to shy away from masculine pronouns as referents to humankind.)
It is the acknowledgment of ignorance, the openness toward mystery, that authenticates both the passion of man and the passion of God. We can understand what it is to desire to be God through fulfillment of desire or through hardening against pain and deprivation or through renunciation of hope and fear, and so we can understand conversely what it is to aim at being man rather than God. When we make humanity our aim, however, and enter thereby into sympathetic understanding of the passion of Christ, we discover that the fulfilled or hardened or detached being that we had imagined to be divine on the basis of our own desire to be God is not the genuine God, but the genuine God is the one who loses himself as God in order that man may be born. *
+1996 Album, Relish. https://genius.com/Joan-osborne-one-of-us-lyrics
#Enriching Our Worship 1: (New York: Church Publishing 1998), see pp, 58, 63.
* John S. Dunne, A Search for God in Time and Memory (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame UP, 1977), p. 23.
Collect of the Day, First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (BCP, 214)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Harriet Bedell, deaconess and missionary (died 8 Jan 1969 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Harriet Bedell
Holy God, fill us with compassion and respect for all people, and empower us for the work of ministry whether near or far away; that like thy servant Harriet Bedell, we may show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, and by giving up ourselves to your service. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
A Collect for the Renewal of Life
O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 99)
A Collect for Early Evening
Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)
A Collect for Mission
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100, 257)
Daily Office Gospel, John 1:1-18
1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
Comments