"Who do you say
that I am?" Jesus asked. Simon Peter answered, "You
are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus
answered, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! ... You are
Peter (petros), and on this rock (petra)
I will build my church..." Jesus then began to speak of
the rough road ahead. And Peter took him aside and rebuked him... "Get
behind me, Satan!" Jesus replied. "You are a stumbling
block..." (Matthew 16:13-23) May these words of this Peter be like a rock, |
"What’s a ‘pair of ducks’?"
Message preached December 30,
2012
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA
based upon John
1:1-18
There’s a package under our Christmas tree which we still need to open. No,
it’s not the latest Halo 4 video game. Nor is it the best cordless drill on
the market. However, it is a mighty force, though it may not appear
powerful. This parcel does not contain the best deal on dress boots from
DSW, a diamond necklace from Jared’s, or Chanel perfume from Nordstrom. Its
beauty is far beyond these things, though a first glance might indicate
otherwise. It is not a book, in hardback or digital form. Nor is it a laptop
able to connect you with the wonders of the world-wide web. Even so, this
box is filled with the deepest wisdom known to humanity. It remains,
nevertheless, hardly noticed amid the piles of crumpled wrapping paper.
When we open this tiny bundle, we see that all it contains is a word:
“Incarnation.” Just a word. What is so powerful about this word? How is it
beautiful? Why so wise? It’s just a word.
Incarnation. Literally, it means “in flesh,” as in “Word made flesh.” That
is, “in human form,” just like you or me.
Incarnation. Behind this word is a teaching which some have called the most
central doctrine of our faith. To put it simply: the Incarnation is about
Jesus, whom we believe was both fully God and fully a human being when he
was born and placed in that manger so long ago.
“Aha!,” you might say, “we’ve already unwrapped that gift. See, it’s sitting
there up on the shelf, along with the other figures in our nativity set. We
even have a tiny light above it that makes it shine in the dark, to remind
us that this is the Son of God.”
Of course, the manger set comes down at the same time the tree does, and is
boxed away until next December. In similar fashion, the gift of the
Incarnation lasts about as long, in many homes, as a battery operated toy.
All too soon it is forgotten.
And yet, it is a, if not the central teaching of the Christian faith.
Powerful, beautiful, wise, and a paradox.... Paradox... A young child heard
enough of a sermon one day to ask his father afterward, “What’s a ‘Pair of
Ducks’?” “I’m not sure,” the Dad replied, “all I know is that the preacher
talks about them whenever he’s flying higher than the rest of us.”
Paradox... In his book, God Was in Christ, Scottish theologian D.M.
Baillie called the Incarnation “the supreme paradox”
(p. 106). He wrote, “the mystery of
the Incarnation is the climax of all Christian paradoxes. They all point to
it, and indeed they are all revealed by it” (p. 110).
Paradox. Webster’s dictionary defines a “Paradox” as “a statement that is
seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.”
According to this definition, to say that Jesus was fully God and fully
human is a paradox. When you think about it, it just doesn’t make much
sense. Even so, we believe it is true.
“God sent his only son,” that favorite scripture verse from John’s
gospel begins. But words are inadequate when describing the Incarnation.
Jesus Christ is not to God what my two sons are to me. Tyler and Mitchell
look a bit like me, they carry a genetic code derived, in part, from my
family tree, some of their behavior has been learned from my own, though
they or I may not want to admit it at times. But my sons are their own
persons, and as time has gone by they have grown separate from me. They are
not replicas of Peter Haynes.
To say that Jesus is God’s son is different from saying that Tyler and
Mitchell are my sons. The meaning is much deeper. The apostle Paul once
wrote “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell”
(Colossians 1:19). That’s more than
genetics or learned behavior. Somehow, someway, all that God was,
is, and will be is contained in Christ Jesus. He is God. When we
look at that manger, we are seeing God in human form. It doesn’t quite make
sense, but it’s true. It’s a paradox.
John’s gospel begins with a long, run‑on sentence that also doesn’t quite
make sense, but it’s one of the most profound statements about Christ found
in the Bible. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God...” “With” implies “side by
side.” “Was” suggests “same as.” The two don’t seem to fit together,
and yet, strangely, they do. God and this Word that became flesh and lived
among us are both “side by side” and “the same.” It doesn’t quite
make sense, but it’s true. It’s a paradox.
That’s only part of the paradox of the Incarnation, however. Jesus was/is
fully God. He was also fully a man, a human being. The book of Hebrews
speaks of how God in Jesus “became like (us) in every respect”
(2:17), knowing the “weakness”
of our existence, experiencing “in every respect” the same “testing”
that we do daily, without giving in to it
(4:15, 2:18). The apostle Paul wrote that Christ Jesus, “though he
was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in
human likeness” (Philippians 2:6‑7). Jesus Christ was fully a human being. This
also is a paradox, it doesn’t seem to make much sense, and yet it’s true.
Put together these two inexplicable mysteries of the Incarnation, that this
newborn baby was fully God, and that he also was fully human, and you’ve got
the Supreme paradox of our Christian faith. This combined statement of faith
is what sets us apart from every other religion on this earth. Every heresy
within the church down through the ages has sought to emphasize one side of
this paradox over the other. But they fit together ‑ beyond common sense and
ordinary reason.
Paradox. What is a “Pair of Ducks?” When we reach the end of our ability to
understand, we look up and fly with the wings of faith over life’s strange
and new terrain. To grow in faith is to accept its paradoxes, and trust that
what does not make sense in the realm of God, can be true.
Consider the paradox of Grace. This doctrine suggests that all the good within us, everything we manage to do right, flows from God, not from our own innate goodness or right‑ness. This Grace is amazing, we sing, in how it happens through our relationship with God in Christ. We admit that once we were blind to the best of what God calls us to be, lost in our inability to live up to God’s commandments. But God’s grace finds us, or we discover him (whichever), and God gives us the ability to live rightly.
This grace is a paradox, for it asserts that we are most free as human
personalities when we are most dependent on God, on how he lives and acts in us.
Through God’s Grace, we are both free and dependent. Those two
don’t seem to fit together, and yet they do. Pardon the play on words, but like
the flight of these “pair of ducks,” freedom and reliance on the
wind of God, we become graceful when we travel on the wings of faith ‑ faith in
Jesus Christ, who was and is fully God, and fully human.
Paradox. When we pull apart the word Paradox, we find the same root as is found
in the word Doxology. In the New Testament, the Greek word “Doxa” means “Glory.”
A Doxology is a word (a “logy”) of Praise reflecting God’s Glory. We cannot
fully comprehend this Glory, for it is a paradox. We can, however, respond to it
with thankful hearts, and continue to tell the story long after the Christmas
tree and all its trimmings, and all our holiday decorations have been packed
away.
(a variation of this was published in Messenger magazine, December 1996, vol 145, no. 11, p. 18)
online resources for this scripture text |
For commentaries consulted, see Ephesians. |
©1996, 2005, 2012 Peter
L. Haynes
(you are welcome to borrow and, where / as appropriate, note
the source - myself or those from whom I have knowingly borrowed.)