Sacramental Channels

As Christmas draws closer we begin to sing  about Emmanuel (God with us) and hear about the reality of the incarnation.  The incarnation-Jesus who embodied in the flesh God himself.  The most amazing expression of love; that God would descend into his own creation, put on flesh, and in bodily demonstration show us that he doesn't despise matter, but rather, weds divinity and flesh in Christ.  This incarnation a precursor to our own incarnational reality.  That God would not only send his son wrapped in flesh but, at Pentecost, he would use us as a receptacle for the Divine.  He sent his Spirit to dwell in those who would be born again.  This reality is not only known through the idea/reality of the incarnation but also can be thought of in terms of sacrament.  "The sacramental view of reality affirms that Spirit can be and is encountered in and through material forms."  The two main forms ordained for us in Scripture are those of the Lord's Supper and Baptism and in taking part in Baptism and the Eucharist we experience the presence of Christ.  To say it another way,"sacramentalism is the belief that God works through physical things to effect our lives.  What sacramentalism declares is that there is nothing outside of God's strength.  There is no more of an ultimate spiritual declaration than this:  God can use whatever he wants to speak to us, change us and work in our lives, even physical elements transformed by grace."   The Westminster Divines stated it like this, "God in his ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure" (WCF 5.3).

We are those, if we are Christians, that have been "transformed by grace."  We have come into, through faith in Christ, a union with him.  We know as Christ prayed in Jn 17: 21, "that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me."  Moreover, Paul in Galatians 2:20 states that he no longer lives but "Christ lives in me."  And through this mystical union we become "Sacramental channels"; a people in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit charged to bring the presence of Christ to others.  So we as Christians are "sacramental" in the sense that he or she is a channel for the Presence, a medium through which Love Himself can flow."

May we keep Christ's presence in the forefront of our reality and look to do the same in the lives of others.