Journeying to Easter - Part 3Sample

Brings us close to God

I had a funny conversation with friends about this verse recently. I’d asked what it meant to them that Jesus became flesh. They responded; it’s amazing; it’s comforting; and then… ‘I like that He would have experienced chafing’. We all burst into laughter. Perhaps for obvious reasons we don’t often think about the physical and practical sides of life that Jesus experienced as a human. And yet, they are part of the picture of the glory of the incarnation.

Instead of holding Jesus’ life at a distance from our experience of life, these moments help us see what occurred when He was made man. The indignity of chafing, the pain of a toothache, the rumble of His stomach and the frustration of a persistent mozzie. Jesus faced all of these challenges. I often jump quickly from this thought to the – ‘oh yeah but He did it perfectly’, and so welcome back the distance we assume between our experience as humans and His. However, there’s something important we shouldn’t miss. Jesus WAS made man. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. HE chose to know the pain, weariness, indignity, joy, laughter, chafing and more because He came to be our salvation. Yes, He did it without swearing or responding sinfully. That doesn’t undermine the fact that He did it. He entered into our reality and felt it all so that the distance that did exist between us and God would no more remain.

Jesus’ life on earth – brings us close to God.

Written by KATIE SMITH