1. Jesus told the woman at the well of Samaria that "God is a Spirit. They that worship Him will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." When Jesus said this, he was speaking within the context of the Hebrew Covenant worship.

   We Christians also worship God the Father in (Spirit), God the Son, Jesus Christ (Human), and God the Holy Spirit (also in Spirit).

   These are three Persons that exist in one essence. We never confuse the Persons, or divide the essence in our understanding of what we call the "Trinity." These three Persons share those things that can only be true of God: Omnipotence (all powerful), Omnipresence (everywhere present), Omniscience (all knowing), Eternality (no beginning, no end) and Immutability (never changes).

   Jesus is the image of the Father, yet He is human. He exists in what theologians call the "hypostatic union." This means he 100% God and 100% human. Not half God and half human. He is 100% both.

   Jesus is not "Spirit." He never was. He is and has always been and always will be -- corporeal.

   So now -- rather than an esoteric Spirit -- we engage an empirical Jesus. As humans in faith, we are in union (fused together) with him. Our humanness connects directly with his humanness. This creates an unchangeable and palpable relationship; a connection that nothing can separate. We identify with another Human instead of a non-human divine Spirit. This is the whole rationale as to why he became one of us, and why we were created in His image. Jesus was not created. He was begotten of God in his earthly substance.

2. It shifts our focus from an amorphous, generalized relationship with a stylized, ethereal and distant God, to JESUS as "another" one of us. There is a commonality, a union with his Humanness -- which is the central focus, the crux, thus moving us closer to the nexus (where two or more meet, a connection at the core, or center of Jesus himself). This is what Paul identified as being "in Christ" (a phrase which occurs 92 times in the New Testament).

3. Intimacy, therefore, becomes predicated upon the humanness of Jesus. Our level of love and passion for him is increased owing to the fact that we perceive him as a human -- as he really is -- resulting in a greater measure of faith as we engage another human being, who is also God. Keep in mind that we are created in the Image of God. The "likeness of man," in which Jesus came, he possessed before he was incarnated in Bethlehem (see Old Testament examples of his pre-incarnate appearances).

4. In this human intimacy, this human/divine connectedness, this joining in union we fulfill the purpose of Creation and Redemption.

5. Since one begins this discovery of the Human Jesus at the cross, honoring that humanness helps us to appreciate its meaning and significance. It helps us to internalize the cross as the Matrix, the Gateway to all that follows.

   What the Disciples Saw:

   After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

   On one occasion, while he was eating with them . . .

   After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

   They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
   -- Acts 1:3-10

   After that, he was seen by more than 500 brothers at one time,
   -- 1 Corinthians 15:5

   What Stephen Saw:

   But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." -- Acts 7:55-56

   What John Saw:

   ". . . among the lampstands was Someone like a Son of man dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. - Revelation 1:12-16

   Qualifier: Jesus was and is human in every respect except for the properties of his body. He can be seen and touched as a human. He can consume human food. His body, however, is not flesh and blood. He is able to enter locked and closed rooms without entering through doors. These properties in no way limit the properties of his essence.

6. The humanness of Jesus brings into bold relief the truth, the reality of Jesus living through us with every heartbeat of our lives. Jesus dynamically lives his life in and through the believer. This is not doctrinaire or antiseptic teaching, it is real life and experience. It is fundamentally existential.

7. The consequence of this discovery is an all consuming life of vitality, and an Eternal engagement -- the concrete, explicit reality that lies beyond imagination.

-- PDM

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