That is the encouragement I gave to an audience at the recent Homegoing Celebration (funeral) of a member in my local congregation, Mrs. Eloise Harrison.
I gave this special encouragement because:
1.) Eloise lived a full life of 85 years embracing her humanity – with 56 of those in a marriage she and her spouse both enjoyed :-), and,
2.) She embraced Jesus’ personal Revelation to her, in the Spirit, that He, Jesus, has embraced her and all of humanity in His own PERMANENT GOD/HUMANNESS!!
I was proud to be her pastor, and can confirm all this good news after many good conversations with her in our HUMAN relating, in Christ, together at New Creation Community Church!
This is a HUGELY important point! If we miss this, we miss the Good News of the Gospel! Because we are sinners, we often run so quickly to the subject of salvation that we get “stuck” there and miss the more subtly obvious!
If Jesus is God with Us and He came to US and to save US – who is the US? Who are we? Are we not – is God not (in Jesus!) – HUMAN!? To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe that “God is with Man, as Man!” Do you see the staggering beauty of this Revelation of God in Christ? The Father, Son and Spirit haven’t demanded that we get ourselves into him, or become like him! God isn’t more interested in his rules than he is interested in relating with us as we are!!
This is the great Epiphany = the manifestation of God as man in Jesus! Who would have “thunk” it?! As Baxter Kruger often says, “The difference between Christianity and every other religion is that in religious mythology you always have to “get to God”. In Christianity God has come to us, remains with us as we are, and has gotten us into himself by getting into us – our humanity, literally!” Ha-Ha! John 14:20! Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that gracious? Isn’t that truly Good News?!
What greater reason could we have for attending barbeques, fish fry’s, picnics, family reunions, taking cruises, line dancing, break-dancing, walking for Leukemia, assisting the Diasabled Veterans of America, attending sports games and activities, celebrating birthdays, engaging in meaningful work with our minds and hands, attending celebration services with the Church, giving of our time/talent/treasure to family, friends and neighbors, and respectign people at funerals – than to SEE JESUS FOR WHO HE REALLY IS – the Relational God, who has embraced our humanity forever?!!
It cannot be honestly and historically denied! The biblical record is that Jesus Christ spent most of his human life NOT preaching and teaching in a formal and Jewish Rabbinical sense, but living and embracing his (our!) humanity in community and relationships! The Son of Man came “eating and drinking”! Matt 11:19!
This is why Eloise embraced her humanity, as tough as it was sometimes! This is why you and I want to embrace human life, as tough as life can be! This is why we FEAR and HATE death! We were meant for life in the flesh and our guts know it!!
Christianity is NOT about trying to escape the flesh and becoming an eternal and flourescent lightbulb! I am NOT saying we won’t glow with joy and the new effervescence of glorified humanity, but I am saying that however we will be, WE WILL BE HUMAN!!
If you plan on spending any amount of personal time with Jesus Christ in eternity, then you better get used to wearing skin and carrying around a few bones in a human body! If you don’t plan on being human, you sure are going to be mad, or sad, for a long time – because human you will be!! 1 Cor 15:22! Ha-Ha!!
God doesn’t throw his creation away like last weeks trash! He redeems it! He renews it! He makes it new!! Where do you think we get the idea of recycling from?! lol!
Encouragingly, the new body won’t be weak and wear out like this sin-filled one! It will be raised a strong and imperishable body! 1 Cor 15! This speaks to the “not yet” part of our life in Christ! In Him, in his literal human body, our human nature has been redeemed and renewed ALREADY, and that is why we can have real hope and certainty for a better quality of human life that we know “not yet”! Our real human life is hidden in Jesus with God!
So, embrace your humanity, NOW, and don’t be too fearful of who or what can kill the body! Jesus is a living witness to us all that God has joined us in our humanity forever, raised it anew, and has accepted, validated and confirmed that being human is good and very good! At great cost and sacrifice to himself, the Son of God will forever mediate to us other human beings the vibrant relationship he shares with his Father in the Spirit, in his human being! 1 Tim 2:15!
WOW!!! 🙂 Again!
Posted by tjbrassell 
God Likes You 