Damien’s Story
Incarnation. It is the core doctrine of the Christian faith.
The incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. John 1:14 says “The Word became flesh and made His
dwelling among us.” The incarnation is the mystery of the Word made flesh. For
our better understanding, we have just heard the story of the man and the
birds. And here is another story. In 1863 Father Damien sailed as a missionary
to Hawaii . He was horrified by
the difficulty of the leprosy victims, who had been permanently banished to the
island of Molokai Molokai
in 1889. In later stages of his own illness, Damien remarked, "The Lord
decorated me with his own particular cross—leprosy."
God’s Story
The history of humankind is the history of redemption. God
created humanity in God’s own image. It was good. It was very good. But Adam
and Eve chose to rebel against the Creator because they themselves wanted to be
a god. As soon as Adam sinned, the relationship with God was broken, and death
came. But by His grace God continued to provide a way of salvation for His
people. God made a covenant with them. God sent the Law to show the way they
should live and make them holy. But they took it lightly and had turned to
their own way. God sent the judges and kings. But they didn’t follow the guidelines;
instead, they did what was right in their own eyes. God sent his prophets, but again
they didn’t listen to them. They mocked them, persecuted them, and killed them.
And finally, when the time had fully come, God sent His one and only Son to
save His people, to save us from our sin and death. This is the day that God
became human.
We call this the gospel. The gospel is good news, not
good advice. Advice is counsel about what we must do. News is a report
about what has already been done. Advice urges us to make something happen.
News urges us to recognize something that has already happened and to respond
to it. Suppose there is an invading army coming toward a town. What that town
needs is military advisers; it needs advice – when, where and how to fight.
But, if a great king has intercepted and defeated the invading army already, what
does the town need then? It doesn’t need military advisers; it needs
messengers, and the Greek word for messengers is angelos, angels.[1] That is
why in today’s scripture the angel said to shepherds, “I bring you good news of
great joy! Something has been done for you to be saved!” (cf. Luke 2:10).
Jesus, True Man
The gospel, the good news is about the person Jesus Christ.
In Romans 1:3-4 Paul proclaims the gospel in this way: “The Good News is about
his Son. In his earthly life he was born into King David's family line, and he
was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of
the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord” (NLT). First of all, he is “Jesus,”
who is fully human. The name Jesus literally means “God saves.” This name
was very common at that time. In Hebrew it is “Joshua.” There were many people
who had the name, ‘Joshua’ or ‘Jesus.’ The name, “Jesus” refers to the fact
that he is fully human. He was born as a helpless human baby. He was real, not
a metaphor. He needed to be fed and changed. He felt hungry and tired. He has
been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15 ). Why is it so important that Jesus is
fully human? It is because it is necessary for the Savior to shed His blood for
the forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22
says, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Only human who
has a body of flesh and blood can be crucified and shed blood. Jesus has come
to us in the flesh to die on the cross and shed his blood for the forgiveness
of our sins. So the first gospel message that we need to believe is that Jesus
has come to me as a true human and died to cleanse me from all my sins.
Christ, True God
Secondly, he is “Christ,” who is fully
God. In Hebrew, “Christ” is “Messiah,” which means, “the anointed one.” In
the time of Jesus all the Israelites knew that “Messiah” is the son of God.
Christ is the true God. Romans 1:4 says, “He was shown to be the Son of God
when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Then why is
it so important that he is truly divine? It is because only God can be raised
from the dead. In human history there is no one resurrected. Only Christ, the Son
of God, the very nature of God, was raised from the dead. The resurrection is
the essence of the Christian faith. 1 Cor 15:14
says, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your
faith.” And he continues, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile;
you are still in your sins” (17). Our last stop is still “death.” Our destiny
is the same. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of
those who have fallen asleep! (20). Amen! By the resurrection of Christ God
demonstrated that Christ is righteous, and considers anyone who believes in his
name also righteous. Romans 4:25
says, “Christ was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life
for our justification.” Justification means “to declare righteous.” No matter
what we have done, no matter who we are, because of what Christ has done on our
behalf, we are declared righteous. Now we have peace with God. So the second
gospel message is that Christ is the Son of God and by his resurrection he has
restored our relationship with God.
Our Lord!
Jesus Christ is true God and true man. But
it is not enough to just intellectually agree that he is fully divine and fully
human. We must receive Him as our Lord. The Bible says, “But to all who did
receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God” (John 1:12 ). I want to end with
a story of a sculptor. You might have heard before, but I think it is worth
repeating: There was a sculptor once who sculpted a statue of our Lord. And
people came from great distances to see it – Christ in all his strength and
tenderness. They would walk all round the statue, trying to grasp its
splendour, looking at it now from this angle, now from that. Yet still its
grandeur eluded them. So they finally consulted the sculptor himself. He replied,
“There’s only one angle from which this statue can be truly seen. You must
kneel.”[2]
