Immediate Word

In Hebrews 1:3, Christ is described as “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” who “sustains all things by his powerful word.” That’s another way of saying that he brings God’s perfection to the world -- and in the next installment of The Immediate Word, team member Robin Lostetter suggests that one way of understanding the Incarnation is to think of it as a viral attack of love and forgiveness unleashed by God on humankind. And Robin notes that offers numerous parallels with how cyberattacks -- like the recent efforts by Russia to disrupt U.S. election -- are spread. Indeed, a major investigative piece last week in the New York Times was headlined “The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.” Obviously, cyberattacks have an entirely different motivation -- they are intended enable the hostile takeover of computer networks; but as Robin points out, the spread of the gospel message works in a similarly viral fashion. In fact, if we were to detail the implications of Christ’s birth for the world, our headline might be “God’s Perfect Weapon: How Heavenly Power Invaded the World.” God’s healing is offered to us in the most unlikely package -- a baby who is not concerned with worldly power but who is the coming of the Prince of Peace... and our calling as people of faith is to keep the incredible viral power unleashed by Christ’s birth going and to continue to spread its influence in the world. Here’s a preview:

The Viral Jesus
by Robin Lostetter
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)

When the innocent, helpless child Jesus was born to Mary, scripture tells us that “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” entered the world. It may have seemed a stealth move to those, like King Herod, who viewed power in terms wealth and physical strength. 

But this entrance into our reality, this incarnation of the divine, was more powerful and less subject to control by humans bent on destroying it than the richest, most well-equipped army. Like the Soviet cyberattack which ultimately affected the recent U.S. election, one could describe Jesus’ birth as viral, if we were to do as federal investigators did, spending “two years, often working day and night, tracing how it hopped from the Navy to the Department of Energy to the Air Force and NASA.”

Similarly, this peaceful infiltration of heavenly power began small with a baby’s cry in Mary’s arm, then reached shepherds, townsfolk, magi, Herod, and eventually every disciple down to you and me. This is still the model for how our faith is often spread -- face-to-face, one-on-one, quietly -- in a fabric or matrix that infuses our society. In its purest form, it remains the power of subversive love, undermining the worship of wealth and physical strength in the world.