Incarnation: A Franciscan View
Incarnation Is Already Redemption
Friday, June 5, 2015
If incarnation is the big thing, then Christmas is bigger than Easter (which it actually is in most Western Christian countries). If God became a human being, then it’s good to be human and incarnation is already redemption. Francis and the Franciscans were the first to popularize Christmas. For the first 1,000 years of the church, there was greater celebration and emphasis on Easter. For Francis, if the Incarnation was true, then Easter took care of itself. Resurrection is simply incarnation coming to its logical conclusion: we are returning to our original union with God. If God is already in everything, then everything is unto glory! Much of the early church did not have trouble with what many would now call universal salvation (apocatastasis, as in Acts 3:21). We are all saved by infinite love and mercy anyway. “God alone is good” (Mark 10:18), so there’s no point in distinguishing degrees of worthiness. Everything in creation merely participates in God’s infinite goodness, and our job is to trust and allow that as much as possible.
As Matthew Fox said, we made a terrible mistake by starting with “original sin” (a phrase not in the Bible); we absolutely must begin with original blessing. “God created it, and it was good” is stated six times in a row in our Creation story (Genesis 1:9-31), ending with “indeed it was very good!” But, up to the present time, most of Christianity concentrated on what went wrong with our original goodness. Practitioners of contemplation learn that the mind is much more attracted to the negative than to the positive. (I sometimes wonder if this is the core meaning of the demonic. It is vital to recognize this demon in our own thinking patterns.)
The Franciscan starting point is not sin; our starting point is Divine Incarnation itself. So our ending point is inevitable and predictable: resurrection. God will lead all things to their glorious conclusion, despite the crucifixions in between. Jesus is the standing icon of the entire spiritual journey from start to finish: divine conception, ordinary life, moments of enlightenment (such as his baptism, Peter’s confession, and Jesus’ transfiguration), works of love and healing, rejection, death, resurrection, and ascension. That is not just Jesus; it is true for all of us.
Gateway to Silence:
The Christ is everywhere.
Reference:
Adapted from an unpublished talk.
