Incarnation Application by Margaret Manning

Take approximately 5 minutes to read this shortened version of yesterday's 'A Slice of Infinity'. Post comments to the blog for spiritual collaboration. Please email your prayer requests too.

Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll, 10 which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe. And he said to me, "Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, "Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it." So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.Ezekiel 2:9-3:3 (New International Version)

Slice of Infinity Snippets:
For most of us, the study of doctrine is best left to academics and theologians. If we’re honest, reading and studying theology is something most of us would like to avoid just as we’d like to avoid a root canal.

...The more I thought about the Incarnation, the more I realized that doctrine needs to be incarnational. Doctrine must be “enfleshed” in our very beings, just as our skin encases our bones and organs.

...Of course the preeminent example of incarnation is in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. But incarnational doctrine begins all the way back in the Old Testament. God comes to be with his people in their wilderness wanderings as a pillar of fire and a cloud. God “dwells” among the people in the Ark of the Covenant, and then in the Tabernacle. Later, the Temple became the incarnational focal point of God’s presence with God’s people. Ronald Rolheiser suggests a profound incarnational application for this image: “The idea is that they should digest the word and turn it into their own flesh so that people will be able to see the word of God in a living body rather than on a dead parchment....We have to digest something and turn it, physically, into the flesh of our own bodies so it becomes part of what we look like. If we would do this with the word of God, others would not have to [only] read the Bible to see what God is like, they would need only to look at our faces and our lives to see God.”(1)

Could it be that we could so imbibe and ingest doctrine, and the beautiful teachings that come from God’s word into our lives, that they would radiate from our faces? That the way we lived, spoke, acted--even our very countenance--would give witness to the truth of God’s word? This is incarnation application. We incarnate God’s word, God’s truth and love, as our lives bear witness to Him. Doctrine is lived out, and our beliefs are enfleshed in our deeds and our actions, and even in our words. As St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the word of God wherever you go, even use words, if necessary.”

Comments: I notice quickly what types of Doctrine-especially worldly ones-people hold. Perhaps I am quick to judge. I pray that everyone I come in contact with recognizes the doctrines I hold. By 'eating' the clean things and avoiding the unclean, I pray I am radiating God's love.