Rev. Adam Hamilton - Incarnation: Rediscovering the Significance of Christmas

INCARNATION

INCARNATION

REDISCOVERING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTMAS

Incarnation: Rediscovering the Significance of Christmas

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Incarnation: DVD

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Incarnation: Leader Guide

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Incarnation: Youth Study Book

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Incarnation: Childrens Leader Guide

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Also by Adam Hamilton

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Christianity and World Religions

Christianitys Family Tree

Confronting the Controversies

Creed

Enough

Faithful

Final Words from the Cross

Forgiveness

Half Truths

John

Leading Beyond the Walls

Love to Stay

Making Sense of the Bible

Moses

Not a Silent Night

Revival

Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White

Selling Swimsuits in the Arctic

Simon Peter

Speaking Well

The Call

The Journey

The Walk

The Way

Unafraid

Unleashing the Word

When Christians Get It Wrong

Why?

For more information, visit www.AdamHamilton.com.

ADAM HAMILTON

Author of The Journey, Not a Silent Night, and Faithful

REDISCOVERING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTMAS

INCARNATION:
REDISCOVERING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTMAS

Copyright 2020 Adam Hamilton

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., Nashville, TN 37228-1306 or e-mailed to .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941571

978-1-7910-0554-2

Unless noted otherwise, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org/

Scripture quotations noted KJV are from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crowns patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations noted CEB are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2910 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Sue Thompson
Who incarnated Christs love
to so many in her role as
my executive assistant
these last twenty-three years.
Congratulations, Sue, on your retirement!

Incarnation is both the title and the theme of this book. It comes from a Latin word that means something like embodiment or become flesh. The doctrine of the Incarnation represents one of the foundational, and some might say scandalous, claims of the Christian faith: namely, that the God who created all that is, who sustains the universe by his power, came to us in Jesus. He did not simply inspire Jesus, or speak through Jesus as he might inspire or speak through people today. No, Incarnation claims that God actually became flesh in Jesus.

The church has always struggled with explaining the how of the Incarnation, ultimately relying on theological terms like hypostatic union and homoousios to affirm what our language and understanding find inadequate to explain. Im content recognizing that the how of the Incarnation will remain a mystery.

My hope in this book is instead to explore the why and to what end questions of the Incarnation: Why would God come to us in Jesus? What was the purpose of the Incarnation? How are we meant to respond to the Incarnation, to Gods coming to us in Jesus, today? In answering these questions, I hope to fulfill the promise of the subtitle of this book we will rediscover the significance of Christmas, as Christmas is a celebration of the Incarnation.

In each chapter of this book, well consider one or more of the names or titles used by the Gospel writers as they introduce the story of Jesus. In Christians meant when they proclaimed that Jesus is Lord.

The book is intended to be read over five weeks, one chapter a week for each of the four Sundays corresponding to the four Sundays of Advent, with the epilogue read either on Christmas or Epiphany. For those reading the book with others, there are small group videos and a leader guide available. There are also materials available for children and youthtake a look at the back of the book for additional resources.

My prayer as I wrote this book was that God might speak to me, deepening my own faith and understanding, and then that God might speak through me to you. May your faith and understanding grow so that together we might stand in awe of the Incarnation, and in turn incarnate the love of God that came to us in Jesus Christ.

Adam Hamilton

Spring 2020

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

from ancient days.

(Micah 5:2)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.

(Matthew 2:1-2)

Every four years, on the first Tuesday after November 1, America elects a president. On that day, we also elect all of the members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. Its an important day for our nation, but also one that highlights and exacerbates the deep divisions in our society. There will be victory speeches and concession speeches. One person will be the new leader of the free world.

Two years after the presidential election, the nation votes once more for the entire House and another one-third of the Senate in what is often seen as a referendum on the sitting president as well as the presidents policies and party.

In each election, opposing candidates offer competing visions for our nation, conflicting solutions to our problems, and often divergent policies aimed at accomplishing these visions and solving these problems. Combined, they will spend $1 billion or more to get elected. Meanwhile, political action committees will spend another billion, much of it seeking to cast aspersions on candidates they oppose. As much as we decry the polarization, many of us participate in it through our conversations and our use of social media.