Advent 2: Incarnation
The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son, happened just as it was written about in the prophecy of Isaiah:
Look, I am sending my messenger before you.
He will prepare your way,
a voice shouting in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make his paths straight.”John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins. John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Mark 1:1-8 (CEB)
Most of us in the Progressive stream of Christianity have learned that “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name, but rather the spirit of love that animates all things and makes everything holy.
Unfortunately, much of Christianity has viewed Christ as a once-for-all-time event that happened in a single individual at a particular intersection of human evolution and geopolitical history.
But what if there’s more to it than that? What if we understood the Christ to be what Jesus of Nazareth was pointing us all toward by embodying it fully?
What if we saw Jesus through the lens of what Walter Bruggeman calls “the scandal of the particular.” Or, as Richard Rohr says:
The leap of faith that orthodox Christians made from the earliest period was the belief that this eternal Christ presence truly was speaking through the person of Jesus.
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe
Please join us this Sunday, Dec. 10 in the New Wineskins Virtual Theology Pub powered by Zoom as we continue our celebration of Advent with a look at how the particular reveals the universal through the love for all things that is the essence of the Christ, and where that helps us find hope in troubled times.
Click here to view this week’s discussion video (email address required)
6:00pm ET: Happy Half-Hour (informal meet & greet time)
6:30pm ET: Presentation & conversation begin
Advent 2023: Awaiting the Universal Christ
How does the incarnation of the Christ—both in the creation of the universe and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth—open us to a cosmic view of who God is and who we are? And why does it make a difference?
This Advent, we’re examining the concept of the Universal Christ and how Jesus illuminates the sacredness and connectedness of all things.
Along the way we’re aligning the traditional Advent themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love with the topics of Wisdom, Incarnation, Particularity, and Unitivity to help us experience a deeper connectedness with the Christ, with one another, and with our universe…and, perhaps, beyond.
Using the weekly scripture passages from the Revised Common Lectionary and a series of videos* by The Work Of The People featuring Fr. Richard Rohr, we’ll take a deep look at how Jesus became the Christ and what that means not just for us, but for the entire cosmos.
*All discussion videos will be available through Jan. 1, 2024
Advent/Christmas Weekly Schedule
Dec. 3: Wisdom (Hope) — (1 Corinthians 1:3-9) How setting big mysteries on small stages gives us insight into the non-dualistic mind of the Christ.
(Click here for our discussion video)
Dec. 10: Incarnation (Peace) — (Mark 1:1-8) How seeing the universal through the particular open us to a peace that transcends non-conflict
(Click here for our discussion video)
Dec. 17: Particularity (Joy) — (Luke 1:46b-55) How Mary’s Magnifcat reveals the divine hidden within the ordinary
Dec. 24/25: Unitivity (Love) — (Luke 2:1-20) How the theory of quantum entanglement helps us see the universality of the Christ. (Pre-recorded so you can engage at your convenience)
Dec. 31: No Gathering — Celebrate the New Year with your friends and family, and join us again Jan. 7!
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