Paul, a good Jew, quotes Deuteronomy, “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (Romans 10:8), and adds a challenge that I would repeat today, “Do not tell yourself that you have to bring Christ down!” (10:6). He knew that God had overcome the human-divine gap in the Christ Mystery. The issues of space and time have been overcome once and for all. God is here, not there.

The mystery of the Incarnation is precisely the repositioning of God in the material world once and forever. Continual top-down religion often creates very passive, and even passive-dependent and passive-aggressive Christians. I know this as a Catholic priest for over 40 years. Bottom-up, or incarnational religion, offers a God we can experience for ourselves. We have nothing to fight or prove, just something to know for ourselves. This is what we are about to celebrate at Christmas.

Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 121

Prayer:
Come, Lord Jesus!