By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
I John 4:2-3a

GOD IN FLESH OUR HOPE DIVINE
“Confess” literally means, “to agree with.” And while one may agree with a philosophy or point of doctrine, the real joy of agreement comes when one agrees with another person. The sudden and sincere discovery that “I agree with you!” is often the seed of friendship. It’s almost as if, in recognizing the same thing “out there,” we find a shared spirit “in here”—at least for the moment. In its fullness, we find such agreement to be profoundly relational, surpassing the mere mingling of ideas.

In Christian belief, to confess is to “agree with” God. Such confessions are not merely one-time revelations. Each is an ever deepening and expanding “Yes!”—an ongoing, relational work of the Holy Spirit in us. Romans 8:15 tells us, for instance, that it is God’s Spirit in us that allows us to “cry ‘Abba Father’.” This confession is just the beginning, however. What follows is the journey of trusting that relationship, of letting that confession reverberate through our lives like sound waves, touching and transforming heart, mind and flesh.  

In this section of the letter, John the pastor-teacher is helping the church discern whether the spirit driving a particular prophet or teacher living in or passing through their midst is really “of God.” His rule of thumb is that you will know them by their confessions. Will they be able to “confess,” to agree—with whole-hearted reverberations—that Jesus came “in the flesh”?

Although we do not know for sure the dangerous ideas that lingered on the fringes of these churches, they surely were ones that hesitated to embrace the full union of Jesus’ humanity (“flesh”) and divinity.  Some ancient thinkers, for instance, could not imagine that a pure and holy God would sully himself with a finite, earthly body. In their view, pure spirit was good and earthly matter was evil, and God was God by virtue of his distance from the latter. Whereas we look at an icon in the Nursing Madonna tradition (Madonna Lactans) in wonder that God’s world-redeeming person would come through the fragile, seed-size form of a human child, these thinkers would be scandalized by such an image.

The problem that modern non-believers have with Christianity is somewhat different, however. It’s not that God becoming man is unthinkable. Rather, they object that any particular man might himself be God is categorically naïve, superstitious, and probably at root political. That any one name—any particular flesh—might be the divine name above all names, is something many these days are simply unwilling to consider, confess, or pledge personal allegiance to.

What then do we do with such lack of agreement around us in this season of Advent? Well, for one, we carry on with our confessions—the practices of deepening agreement with God and one another in Word, worship, and love—inviting others to peer in while we pray for their illumination by the Spirit, by which their spirits, too, might cry “Abba Father” and “Lord Jesus.” Who is this “other” that you might invite this Advent to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8)? We do this not only for their salvation but also for our ongoing redemption.

Christian belief—though it may begin with a bang—must continue as a slow and steady, ever deepening and expanding “yes” that reverberates through and transforms our minds, hearts and bodies. We know there is still space for this in us. It is still possible for us to confess agreement with our lips, while our hearts are far from God (Is. 29:13). Jesus says many call him “Lord,” but he does not know them (Mt. 7:21ff).  We, too, might confess, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mk. 9:24).

And so I ask God, in what ways this Advent might I cooperate with the expanding “yes” in my life? What practice or rhythm, Lord, might be a kind of dwelling where I can deepen my whole-hearted agreement with you and your people about the beauty, goodness, power and grace of your self-giving in the flesh? Into what habits and actions does this confession need to expand? And what will be sites and spaces I will seek for my deepening confessions this Advent? Set these things before God today as you gaze at the Lactans Madonna and listen to God in Flesh Our Hope Divine.
Todd Pickett, Dean of Spiritual Development

HOLY GOD, we marvel that you became flesh and bones with a human body in order to reconcile us to yourself. Help us to exalt you always in our bodies that we may speak with boldness about our resurrection hope knowing that whether we live or die Christ is our life. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
Laura Olsen