Christmas 1
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
-- Luke 2:52
We can learn much about Jesus from the gospel stories that provide insight for the body of Christ as well as the individual Christian. In Jesus we see the impact of both the human and the divine. Both were a very real part of who Jesus was. He responded to the expectations of two fathers, Joseph and God. On one level, the church must be obedient to God and to God's call. There is a divine expectation that is part of the church as the body of Christ. At the same time, there are appropriate human expectations to which the church must also be obedient. The church is a human institution and subject to the finite realities of all human communities. The individual Christian feels this same tension as well.
The human side of Jesus was seen in his progressive development or increase in wisdom and years. Luke is clear that Jesus progressed or increased in divine as well as human favor. The Christian does not become instantly mature at the moment one first believes. Part of our sanctification is experienced as we are nurtured in the church that is the intersection between the divine and the human. Jesus sat in the temple listening to the teachers and asking them questions. The truth of faith does not come apart from the community of faith.
We, like Jesus, must be in our father's house or seeking specifically to be in the presence of God. Such an effort will often put us in tension with the human expectations within our own lives and with the expectations of those around us. This brief glimpse of Jesus' childhood suggests that it is important that we accept this tension in our lives. For the church or the human to assume that only one part of the equation is necessary or even ideal is to lose the balance that enables us to increase in wisdom. The word of God that is not incarnated in the daily life of humans is an abstraction that denigrates the creation of God.
-- Luke 2:52
We can learn much about Jesus from the gospel stories that provide insight for the body of Christ as well as the individual Christian. In Jesus we see the impact of both the human and the divine. Both were a very real part of who Jesus was. He responded to the expectations of two fathers, Joseph and God. On one level, the church must be obedient to God and to God's call. There is a divine expectation that is part of the church as the body of Christ. At the same time, there are appropriate human expectations to which the church must also be obedient. The church is a human institution and subject to the finite realities of all human communities. The individual Christian feels this same tension as well.
The human side of Jesus was seen in his progressive development or increase in wisdom and years. Luke is clear that Jesus progressed or increased in divine as well as human favor. The Christian does not become instantly mature at the moment one first believes. Part of our sanctification is experienced as we are nurtured in the church that is the intersection between the divine and the human. Jesus sat in the temple listening to the teachers and asking them questions. The truth of faith does not come apart from the community of faith.
We, like Jesus, must be in our father's house or seeking specifically to be in the presence of God. Such an effort will often put us in tension with the human expectations within our own lives and with the expectations of those around us. This brief glimpse of Jesus' childhood suggests that it is important that we accept this tension in our lives. For the church or the human to assume that only one part of the equation is necessary or even ideal is to lose the balance that enables us to increase in wisdom. The word of God that is not incarnated in the daily life of humans is an abstraction that denigrates the creation of God.
