“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us…” John 1:14
Jesus prayed, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18)
Why?
Why did Jesus make His dwelling among us IN this broken world? Why did He send His disciples into the world just as God the Father sent Him into the world?
Wouldn’t it have been much better to deal with the sin problem from a distance? Wouldn’t it be much less messy for God’s people, the Church, to stay away from all the confused and corrupt sinners out there?
Or, could it be that God is teaching us something?
The One who walked in Eden searching for fallen Adam and Eve, the God who appeared to Moses, the Savior who showed up in the fiery furnace, the Christ child placed in a humble manger, the Friend who sat and ate with sinners, the risen Jesus who allowed Thomas to plunge his hand into the fresh wound in His side, the ascending Lord who promised to return—this incarnational, up close and personal God, teaches us about life IN the world. What is He saying?
The mess is worth the risk.
People are so important to God, He was willing to sacrifice everything to come and get us: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).
John 3:16, the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), and the entire Scriptural narrative underscore how important fallen, broken, sinful, and messy people are to God. And that’s the heart he gives us toward one another: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:9-11).
If the church pulls back too far from its intersection with the culture, it can become a disconnected and sectarian entity, diminishing any caring and saving connection God intends to have with people who have been overcome by the darkness and pain of life.
If we despise, disparage, and dismiss other people, we fail God’s purpose and will for being His Church IN the world.
The church does not exist to be a self-congratulating purity cult. It is the body of Christ, present in the mess, to share the redemption and freedom it has received by God’s grace.
Does this seem impossible? Before Jesus ascended, He gave us the antidote to our weakness, fears, and doubts: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He’s still IN the world so we can be IN the world with His Good News. The mess—our mess—is worth the risk.
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