Tuesday, September 13, 2005

tell me who i am

It has always been the bizarre, the unusual, the unfathomable- yes the mysterious that fascinates us. We nod and approve of the normal; but we are captivated, drawn in by mystery. And this should come as no great shock, for it is precisely the madness of a single event in history that has provided the whole of humanity with an ontological reference point: the incarnation of Christ. Ray Anderson says it well: “The incarnation is the hermeneutical horizon for authentic personhood. All answers to questions about the nature of the human in terms of what it is to be a person must be derived from this event.”

3 comments:

Firelance said...

At the risk of plagiarism, I will say that it is somebody's quote, or part of it, but my dad told me recently that "the incarnation was/is the deepest possible form of communication."

I like that.

elnellis said...

hmmm. i like that too rob. how can we have that deep of communication with our neighbor? i'm guessing it would involve some sort of kenotic (self emptying) on behalf of the other?... that's the high call of Christ...

Anonymous said...

I like that quote too. Incarnation is so profound because it involves not only kenosis but transformational encounter. Christ, in emptying himself to transform us, was subsequently revealed in his glory, and the brilliance of his divinity was revealed. I think that what is most human in each of us can only be revealed through such an incarnational/kenotic encounter because ultimately what is most human about us is that we bear the image of our Creator.