Incarnation: Moving into the Neighborhood

Merry Christmas from our Issaquah "neighborhood!" Circa 2019

In this Christmas season, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the ministry of incarnation.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

-John 1:14, MSG

Incarnation, a fancy theology word, refers to God taking human form; Jesus is God with skin on. I (Chase) love this verse in a Young Life context because, like Christ, we get to “move into the neighborhood“ of our students. What does it mean to “move into the neighborhood”? It means unpacking our bags, being an asset to our community, getting to know our neighbors and showing the kindness of Christ to everyone we meet. In our International schools, it means asking the leadership what they need and how we can help. In the lives of youth, it means showing up, even when it is uncomfortable. I still can get nervous sometimes walking on to a school campus, often asking myself, “Who does this?” In this way, I identify with Jesus – I go because He went first. By entering into the lives of adolescents, we lean into the messiness and the pain of this world. Teenagers are maligned, misunderstood, lonely, and struggling to know who they are. During this difficult season of life, having a Young Life leader who cares about you, shows up, and shares hope and meaning in life makes a difference! I know it has in mine!

I (Meg) cannot hear the word incarnation without connecting it with another fancy church word, Emmanuel, which means God with us. We sing that each Christmas, “O Come O Come Emmanuel…” We are first introduced to this word, which is actually a name or title, in Isaiah 7:14, a book written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. The Jewish people were tired, they were battered, bruised, and confused when their land (a symbol of God’s promise) was taken away from them and they were carried off as subjects of a brutal empire. They cried out to God to “…ransom captive Israel, that morns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears!” In Matthew, that cry of anticipation is answered when we are told that Jesus shall be called Emmanuel, he was born to be the God with Us the Jewish people had been waiting for, who we are waiting for, and so he “became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

In the midst of a long and trying year, we all can relate to this longing, for the hope of God with Us. We are all waiting and longing. Waiting for the pandemic to end, longing for face-to-face conversations and happy hours and basketball games. We are waiting for racial justice, longing to truly live freely and equally. We are waiting for test results, for acceptance letters, for jobs or government relief, for grief to pass. We find ourselves in a season of prolonged transition as we anticipate our move to Germany at some still undetermined date.

What are you longing for? How might that ache connect you with the hope of Christmas—that Christ has come as “God with Us?”

We wonder about the yearnings of the students we will serve in Munich. The ones living in unfamiliar neighborhoods, with friends and family sprinkled around the world, the ones unsure of where they belong. We hope that message can ring in their hearts, that we all belong in God’s neighborhood.

God has called us to “dwell” among International students. Where might you be called to live “incarnationally?” What neighborhood can you “move into” as the hands and feet of Christ?

We hope you all can lean into the hope and joy of Jesus’ incarnation this Christmas.

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel, God with Us, has come to you, O Israel.”

Sometimes incarnation means letting kids pie you in the face...