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Incarnate Ministry

“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace an truth.”

Incarnate. God’s kindness is shown up in his choice of living among those who needed him. He came here and ate with us, lived with us, talked with us and no doubt sang with us. ’With us’, that’s the point. We, who had such a great need, who are so slow to understand, who are annoying and draining, he came and lived among us. He took the time to wade into our vile and crude way of living to reach us with the word of reconciliation. And instead of him becoming dirtied, he cleansed those who wanted to be clean. He did this incarnately; in the flesh; in person.

Essential to the Ministry of Reconciliation is the idea of being incarnate. To bring acts of kindness and the articulation of the truth, we are called to mirror the way in which our Lord accomplished the ministry. He went and lived among those who needed him, he didn’t try to minister from a distance. To identify with them, understand them and translate the Gospel to them within their frame of reference, he dwelt among them. Typically, our lifestyles don’t allow for such a thing, yet they must change to accommodate for incarnate ministry. To do that one must abandon personal preferences, and comfort zones. This doesn’t happen by osmosis, lifestyle must be confronted and altered deliberately. One must pre-meditatively consider the course that must be taken so that we might live among those who need us.

Yet, by our old nature, we drift into non-incarnate ministry by default. Why? Probably because non-incarnate ministry can be adapted to our lives without changing our personal agenda. Non-incarnate ministries are things like becoming absorbed in facility maintenance, writing checks to missions, attempting to impact politics through legislation and working on the proverbial ’committee’. Although some of these have a place in God’s design, none of them were meant as a specialty for one’s life, where you find refuge away from the drain and messiness of personally working with those in need. Non-incarnate ministry can always be taken care of, on the side, by those who are committed to incarnate ministry. In this way, those areas are held in proper perspective.

It’s quite interesting that God worked through non-incarnate ways for centuries. He wrote a book and sent it to his people. He even spoke a message, almost like a radio broadcast, to individuals. He sent messengers, on his behalf too. But in the end, to carry out the centrality of Cross and the word of reconciliation, he came incarnate. May we follow his lead as we take up our cross and follow him.