Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Scandal of the Dancing Christ Theme of the Week: Getting Down and Getting Human Monday, December 20, 2004
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Men of IntegrityNovember/December 2004Scandal of the Dancing ChristTheme of the Week: Getting Down and Getting HumanMonday, December 2076
Key Bible Verse: For in Christ the fullness of God lives in a human body, and you are complete through your union with Christ (Colossians 2:9). Bonus Reading: Hebrews 2:14–3:1
I danced in the morning when the world was begun. And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun. I came down from heaven, and I danced on the earth. At Bethlehem I had my birth.
I first heard this exuberant celebration of the Incarnation, set to a Shaker folk tune, during the Jesus movement of the early 1970s. I'd been raised in the fundamentalist tradition that forbade dancing. So naming Jesus Lord of the Dance, as British songwriter Sydney Carter's lyrics did, came as a real jolt.
Thirty years ago, conservatism kept Christ standing still for the dance. These days it's mysticism—a Gnostic Christianity that keeps Christ disembodied. It's a stretch for most believers to imagine Christ doing ordinary things we do every day. So we construct in our minds a Christ who comes short of being fully human.
We're so convinced that our humanity is our problem that we have Christ saving us from instead of to ourselves—to become what we're truly meant to be as human beings created in God's image. Jesus calls His creation good. In spite of the Fall, what is intrinsically good about God's creation can be reclaimed, experienced, and enjoyed.
—John Fischer in BreakPoint WorldView
My Response: Do I fully accept God's en-flesh-ment in Jesus?
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