In the Flesh

Summary

During these Advent worship services, we’ve been dancing around with the idea of the Incarnation. “Incarnation” is a big word in theology that describes the coming together of God’s life and human life in the person of Jesus. We Christians believe that Jesus was a unique person—there wasn’t anyone like him before in history, and there hasn’t been anyone like him since. He was a unique paradox: completely God and also completely human, 100% God and 100% human.

The word incarnation comes from the Latin word incarnari, which means “to be made flesh.” Jesus was God who came to us in real human, Palestinian Jewish flesh. We don’t know what Jesus looked like because no one ever snapped a photo of him, and if one of the original band of disciples drew a picture of what Jesus looked like, that drawing has not survived.