Advent

A journey begins for a kotuku

So how is it that Jesus is God? How come Jesus is wandering about on Earth, getting hungry, sleeping, only being in one place at a time, getting cross with some people, being kind to others, and all the while he is also the omnipotent, omnipresent, all seeing, all wise God who called the Earth and everything in it into being out of nothing? People have been arguing the toss on this one now for about 2,000 years, sometimes getting very twitchy indeed with those whose answer to that question differs from their own. People with long lists of titles before their names (such as me) or long lists of letters after them (ditto) sometimes pretend to the definitive answer. Let me assure you, as one who has a passing familiarity with all of the most popular answers, they're kidding you. Or sometimes they're kidding themselves, which is pretty much the same thing. My own experience is that the more vigorously people promote a particular answer the less likely it is that they actually know.

God becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ is referred to as The Incarnation.We cover our inability to explain exactly how it works that God can be God and human at the same time by calling it a mystery. Which you might think is a cop out, but actually, it's the only sensible place in which to park your brain on this one, because a mystery is a useful spiritual tool. The great mystery of the incarnation helps us to approach an equally difficult question, and one which is closer to you than you might think. Thinking about The Incarnation raises questions about incarnation in general.

How do you exist as a loving, thinking being in a physical body? Do your thoughts arise out of your brain? And if they do, how is it that your thoughts can change the physical structure of your brain and your body (as they can)? How can your thoughts move your body to do what you want it to do? This question is called by scientists "the mind/brain problem" or "the mind body problem" or sometimes simply "the hard problem". And let me assure you again, that the scientists are no closer to working this one out than the theologians are to working out all that stuff about Jesus and God.

But all this stuff isn't just ideas. It's personal. It's about you. How do you exist? And why? Do you have a soul? Or are you just a bunch of impressions and thoughts that accidentally arose in the chance agglomeration of matter that is your brain? I don't expect an answer. God knows that I have been trying to nut this out, on my own account, for well over 60 years, now. It's the problem of incarnation. My incarnation. And yours. And it's a mystery. But this I know: one way of working with a mystery - perhaps the only way which actually gets us anywhere - is by the resources of our tradition. We hear the ancient story of Jesus and his birth, of all that led up to that event and all that followed it; and in our following of The Incarnation the great mysteries of our own incarnation are brought into focus.

This is why, every year, I walk the 40 day pilgrimage from Advent to Christmas. Because every year Immanuel, God With Us, becomes a smidgen clearer.

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