Incarnational Living

Faye Yu lives in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in the postwar horror of a punishing ten-year conflict. She has been sent by God to this region of the world in order to incarnate the good news of Christ among the children who were enslaved by this horrible war. Ten thousand children in this small country were forced into the war, some as young as five years old. If they refused to kill on behalf of the rebel army their limbs were cut off. They witnessed the killing of parents, forced to participate in the killings of family members, brainwashed, and drugged. Many of the girls were uses as sex toys for the older soldiers. In the wake of this childhood robbery, Faye is called to embody Jesus Christ. She has been sent to “flesh out” her belief in Jesus Christ. Her call as she sees it is to give children permission to be children again.
Faye understands a concept of the gospel that many of us have failed to capture. We cannot live out the gospel from a distance. We cannot be Christ from a distance. We cannot be unattached when it comes to fleshing out the good news. Jesus Christ didn’t stay in the heavens to save us. He entered our world. He became as us, a particular person, in a particular place, at a particular time. God calls us to the same. Incarnational living places Christ at the center of our life and our life at the center of what God is doing in the world. Living incarnationally gives perspective. It helps us see others, God and ourselves in new ways. To each one of us God has called us to incarnate the Gospel in a particular way at a particular time and a particular place. Each day incarnation is a choice. We are always tempted with finding easier ways out, compromising the message, or refusing to live out the gospel. Our journey with Jesus and movement closer to God is lived out when we make a conscious decision each day to live incarnate. It’s the little choices to live simply and give our lives for the sake of others that defines incarnational living.
John writes, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). God enters the darkness. God refuses to remain in heaven and allow the world to be consumed by darkness. Instead, God climbs down into the darkest places of our lives to be with us. The message of Christmas is that darkness does not overcome. In Jesus, the light has come. We are not alone. The hope of Christmas is that God is present, God has given company. God has moved into the neighborhood.
This Christmas I challenge you to carry that light into someone’s dark world. Be the light in someone’s darkness. Make this Christmas the time for you to start living the life of Jesus, incarnational living.