Missio Dei: WK3 - MON
THE WORD THAT MOVED IN
John 1:1, 14 (NLT) “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God... So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
John doesn’t ease you into the incarnation. He drops you in at the beginning of everything and then, in fourteen verses, brings you all the way to a baby in a feeding trough. The same Word that was with God before creation, through whom everything was made, that Word became flesh. Took on a body. Moved into the neighborhood.
The Greek word John uses for “make his home among us” is eskenosen, literally, “he pitched his tent.” The image is of someone setting up camp in your midst. Not visiting. Not passing through. Not holding office hours for people who make appointments. Moving in. Becoming present in the ongoing, ordinary, inconvenient way that neighbors are present.
This is the shape of the incarnation. And because the incarnation is the shape of Jesus’s mission, it must also be the shape of ours.
The incarnation tells us that God does not believe in ministry from a safe distance. He did not address the world’s brokenness through a strongly worded letter from heaven. He came down and ate. got tired, and attended weddings and funerals and dinner parties at the homes of people polite society had written off. Jesus wept at a friend’s grave and touched lepers who hadn’t been touched in years. He was near.
I’ll be honest, this is deeply inconvenient for any model of mission that prioritizes our own comfort. But, it is also deeply hopeful, because it means that when we move toward people, not with a program or an agenda, but with genuine presence, we are doing something that looks like God. We are imaging the one who, when the world needed saving, did not stay where it was comfortable. He moved in down the street.
John 1:1, 14 (NLT) “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God... So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
John doesn’t ease you into the incarnation. He drops you in at the beginning of everything and then, in fourteen verses, brings you all the way to a baby in a feeding trough. The same Word that was with God before creation, through whom everything was made, that Word became flesh. Took on a body. Moved into the neighborhood.
The Greek word John uses for “make his home among us” is eskenosen, literally, “he pitched his tent.” The image is of someone setting up camp in your midst. Not visiting. Not passing through. Not holding office hours for people who make appointments. Moving in. Becoming present in the ongoing, ordinary, inconvenient way that neighbors are present.
This is the shape of the incarnation. And because the incarnation is the shape of Jesus’s mission, it must also be the shape of ours.
The incarnation tells us that God does not believe in ministry from a safe distance. He did not address the world’s brokenness through a strongly worded letter from heaven. He came down and ate. got tired, and attended weddings and funerals and dinner parties at the homes of people polite society had written off. Jesus wept at a friend’s grave and touched lepers who hadn’t been touched in years. He was near.
I’ll be honest, this is deeply inconvenient for any model of mission that prioritizes our own comfort. But, it is also deeply hopeful, because it means that when we move toward people, not with a program or an agenda, but with genuine presence, we are doing something that looks like God. We are imaging the one who, when the world needed saving, did not stay where it was comfortable. He moved in down the street.
- Who has been genuinely present with you during a difficult season of life?
- What keeps you from moving toward people instead of managing them from a distance?
- How can you practice incarnational presence this week?
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