Incarnation’s Power

Throughout Easter Season, we reflect on the wonder of the Resurrection and the resulting transformation of a few frightened followers of Jesus into a living community of faith that could go out and change the world. A seemingly ordinary carpenter, whose encounter with the divine led to a new life of preaching the good news of God’s loving, transformative care for all, offends and threatens the powerful rulers of his people. He is condemned to a shameful, tortured death, and dies in a very public way for all to see; but he doesn’t remain dead in his tomb. He rises and appears physically, with wounds intact, to his friends. Frightened at first, they come to believe that the one who comes among them, shares meals with them, and allows them to touch him and his wounds is truly their teacher and their Lord.

His followers remained frightened and in hiding until the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection, when the Holy Spirit whom He had promised to send came upon them with all of the Spirit’s great gifts: wisdom, understanding, right judgment, knowledge, courage, reverence, and wonder. With the strength of the Spirit, they went forth, drawing on the power of God and began to change the ways of the world. The changes didn’t happen overnight. Many of the them have taken centuries to be accepted. Many more remain to be accepted universally (the equality of men and women, for example). But the Spirit continues to work through the community of Jesus’ followers.

Divine Power: Nothing Is Impossible

The importance of the Incarnation as source of the power behind all of this is expressed beautifully by Michael Casey in his book, Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Interactive Christology. Casey writes:

Jesus, fully divine and fully human, is the point where human history intersects with the creative and sustaining hand of God; at this point of meeting nothing is impossible.” (p. 129)

Because Jesus is fully divine as well as fully human, and because we as Church (community) are the Body of Christ, ultimately nothing good will be impossible. God’s will to be reunited with all of humanity and all of creation, sharing the life of the Trinity with all, can and will be realized.

Incarnation. Resurrection. Two facets of the power-filled intersection of human and divine life.

Fully Human, Fully Divine (2004: Ligouri/Triumph)

Public Domain image by Robert & Mihaela Vicol