I’m aware that one aspect of becoming older, and developing in my faith, is a growing sense of my own inadequacy, my personal imitations and failings, and my weaknesses as a follower of Jesus Christ. More than just a pious humility, or worse, a false sense of stroking my own ego, this is an area of spiritual growth, coming from a not-flattering assessment by The Holy Spirit, of how much I have depended on His previously unacknowledged grace over the last several years.
I’m glad that the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, wrote “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.: (2 Corinthians 4:7) The treasure that Paul writes about is the living presence of God that dwells in each person who trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is – The Holy Spirit. The ‘jars of clay’ he writes about is the human person – frail, fragile, and likely containing cracks and fault lines. Perhaps a contemporary expression might be ‘cracked pots’. God pours Himself into lowly containers.
This thought is consistent with ‘incarnational theology’ – that is, the grand idea that the transcendant, ineffable, Almighty God, creator and sustainer of all things, mysteriously expresses His Self by entering into His creation – most supremely in the birth and life of the unique human person Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians acknowledge as both fully human and also fully Divine: The God-Man. Also, by the decision of God, by the presence of the Holy Spirit (that is the Spirit of the One God, the same Spirit that has always been God) that Jesus breathed out onto, and into, every person who follows, trusts (believes) in Jesus. We disciples of Christ – we Christians (‘little Christs’) are indwelt by the presence of God. we are incarnate of God.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit also indwells our personal relationships with other Christians. So this incarnation of God is not just a personal atrribute of the Christian, but also a collective, communal expression of God-with-us. God exists in our relationships, our friendships, fellowships, and even in our interpersonal conflicts and when we experience differences withing the commuity of believers – that is – The Church. The Church is also a jar of clay – a human community in which God Almighty dwells. An incarnational community.
What about ‘outsiders’ – those human persons who do not follow and trust in Christ – those who are outside the church? While these ones do not possess the Holy Spirit (or are not possessed by the Holy Spirit) in the same way as believers, they are not without the presence of God. In Genesis we read that humankind was made ‘in the image of God’ (Genesis 1:27). I take this to mean that the image of God is within each and every person, those of all faiths, and those of no faith. This understanding imbues every person with immense dignity, worth and value. Each person is, to some extent at least, a breathing instance of the Divine. If God reveals His name as ‘I am Who (That) I am’ (Exodus 3:14) and if The Lord Jesus Christ describes Himself as ‘The Life’ (John 14:6) then all persons who are, who are alive, carry within them the spark of God. intrinsically, fundamentally, profoundly. Here is the root of Christian compassion, and human compassion, that our neighbor is one with us, in that we are alive together, only by the grace of God, and only as sustained by God.
So all persons, and especially Christians, are containers of God. Our weakness, our mortal temporariness, means that we are transient, fleeting, and so very needy of God’s presence. We are simultaneously grand – made only a little lower than the angels – (Hebrews 2:7) and fragile – like grass that when the wind passes over it, is no more (Psalm 103:15).
In this way, I am growing in awareness that I am temporary, and soon enough, even the memory of me will pass from the earth. Yet while I am here, my truest self is to submit to the Holy Spirit within me, and to allow all my thoughts and impulses to be aligned by Him, informed by Him, and thus to be ever more truely incarnate of Him.