The Significance of God Becoming Man – Advent 2023

Summary

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This time of the year lends itself to meditation on the Incarnation as we remember God becoming Man as the person of Christ Jesus. John Kinuthia reflects on the significance of God taking on our human nature and what it means for our lives and relationship with Him.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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“For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”

Saint Athanasius

1. Because God became Man, we are able to have a real relationship with Him. Do you feel as though you have truly met the person of Jesus Christ? What are some ways you can intentionally work to deepen this relationship?

2. How does the Incarnation allow you to more fully experience the love of God?

3. Do you feel like God is truly present and understands what you’re going through? Do you ask for His help in carrying the burdens that feel too great? Why or why not?

4. With the Incarnation, God Himself gave us the perfect example to follow so that we can become partakers in His divine life. In what ways God is inviting you to grow to more perfectly emulate Christ?

Text: The Significance of God Becoming Man

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God is good all the time and all the time, God is good. My name is John Kinuthia and to this talk it’s all about the significance of God becoming man. I’d like to invite Our Lady and ask her to intercede for us to Jesus, to pray for us to Jesus as we hear this talk.

Hail Mary

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hebrews 2:16-18

Well, when I was preparing for this talk, I thought one of the best scriptures that I felt that was capturing what I wanted to say today was the Hebrews 2:16-18, which is really deep so I’m going to read it for you. “Surely, He did not help angels but rather the descendants of Abraham, therefore, He had to become like his brothers in everywhere, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God to expiate the sins of the people because He Himself was tested through what He suffered. He is able to help those who are being tested.”

Jesus and His Suffering

Quick question for you. Do you know somebody who is going through suffering, who is experiencing testing, whether it’s of his faith or life? If you answered yes, then Jesus went through the same thing and Jesus did that because He loves you and He loves me so that whenever we call upon Him, He helps us because He Himself was tested through what He suffered. He is able to help those who are being tested.

Ah, so beautiful and so good that in our day-to-day basis, when we are experiencing pain and suffering, and disappointments, and sadness, that He who became like us was tested through what He suffered. When you call upon Him, when we call upon Him, Jesus, He is able to help us.

A Reflection of God’s Love

The significance of God becoming man is a reflection truly of how much He loves us, that He is willing and He willed it to enter into our humanity, fully, so that He can experience the ups and downs, the suffering, the joys, dancing in a wedding, right? He must be of the chosen. I watched “Chosen” a while back and I saw Jesus dancing at the wedding. I thought it was funny, but He experienced in total humanity what do we go through in everyday basis.

And so we are called to enter into this mystery, to unite ourselves with His suffering, to invite Him in our own suffering, in our own messiness, in our own disappointments. Because He is willing, He is ready. He is ready to help us in our own suffering. That’s beautiful, don’t you think? And that should give you and me confidence that when we on our knees calling on Jesus, Jesus, help me, that He is able to hear you. He is able to say, “Don’t worry, be not afraid. I’m walking with you. I’m with you right now in the midst of your suffering, in the midst of your sadness, in the midst of your joy. I’m right here.” Jesus, we love you so much and thank you for coming to us.

For Our Salvation

The Catechism of the Catholic church deeply gives us four reasons, four major reasons that Jesus became man, but God became man for us. And number one, He became like us so that He can save us by reconciling us with God, our Father, that He took upon Him all our humanity so that He expiate our sins. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Yes. Amen.

Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life that He came so that He can take my place, think about this and take your place on the cross so that He can reconcile us with God.

In a broken world where the sick need healing, where we fall, we need to be helped to get up, Jesus. And as you know, Jesus fell three times reminding us in our fall, He fell. And when you call upon Him, when you’re falling, He says, “I’m right here. I’m going to help you to get up.” And He came so that we can see to change, to transform our darkness into light, to heal the blind and to help the blind to see. Jesus, we love you. Thank you so much for coming and turning my blindness Into sight that I’m able to see. I can see you clearly for healing me, for carrying the cross, the heavy cross for me, for dying for me on the cross. Thank you, Jesus. Praise you, Jesus.

So He became man because of His deep love for us. But God saw it fitting and He chose to send His only begotten son so that He can take my place and your place so that He can redeem you, He can redeem me. He can reconcile me to God, the Father. I’m his brother. You are His brother, you’re His sister.

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that why we profess what we profess? Begotten not made. He came down from heaven, right? Because of that deep love because He wanted to erase all our sins. And this is what we also experienced, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When you go for confession, He takes all those sins away and wipes them all over them and reconciles us with God.

So that when we got to receive Him in the Holy Eucharist wherein the state of grace and He says, “I love you so much, my son, my daughter, come back to me. I died for you. I’ll help you carry the cross. Whatever you’re going through, I went through that too. Just invite me in your life. Allow me to come in. Allow me to step into your life and I’ll change it.”

Because this is what happens when Jesus comes to our lives. He comes and He changes things. He calls us to conversion. He says, “Accept me, accept me. I am Jesus. I’ll help you. I’ll grow you. I’ll nurture you. I’ll renew you. Accept me. Do not sin anymore. Go. Do not sin anymore. I’m not here to condemn you. I’m here to give you joy. I’m here to create you anew.” Isn’t that beautiful? This is the one we are called to follow. The one who makes everything possible. With Jesus, all things are possible.

For Us To Know God’s Love

The second reason why Jesus became man and so that we might know God’s love. We may come to know and experience God’s love for our lives, that through Jesus Christ, we may come to know God and counter God, serve Him. And that way that we don’t think that God is far away. He’s out there. Where’s God? He’s out. No. He’s not out there. But He came here again to experience our emotions, to experience our sufferings, to experience what we experience on a day-to-day basis.

That we should know that He loves us so much, that He is willing in his humility to take on the human nature so that He can walk with us. Think about that. He can walk with us. He can carry us in our difficult moments. Oh God, you’re so good. Thank you so much for manifesting yourself, for being visible to us every day. Your love for us is so great. Your love for us is so powerful. Help us to follow you.

In that reason that the Catechism states is that, “He came in the flesh, the Word became flesh. God became man so that He can be the model of holiness, the model of holiness.” He came so that He can awaken within us. The desire to know God, to follow God, to love Him so much that every day we are willing to seek Him. Every day we are willing to take up our cross and follow Him. That God became man to show us how to pray that it doesn’t matter what time of the day it is. And we are called to pray. We are called to a continuous conversation with God. We are called to a continuous conversion, to experience in a deeper way what this love is like, to be loved by God who said, “I created you. And in the beginning I created you. I knew you before I even found you. I knew you. I called you by name.”

Jesus came so that He can show us how to be aware and to experience God’s love every day in our daily prayer. You know in the scriptures, there’s so many instances whether looking at Matthew, Mark, Luke where Jesus, even in His busiest of the days, He’s still taking time to go out and pray. Matthew 14:23, for example, “After He had told the crowd to go away, He went to the mountains by Himself to pray. And in the evening, He was alone.”

Having a busy day, busy day, preaching the word of God, healing and curing the sick, yet He had to go to pray. You and I, He shows us, you and I that to continue cultivating this deeper relationship with him, it’s a continuous prayer life. To be holy is to always invite God in our lives through prayer. In the book of Luke 6:12 again, “He went out to the mountain and spent the entire night praying.”

He reminds me that, that’s why our churches have the Blessed Sacrament, Adoration time. I know there’s some parishes that have 24 hour Adoration time so that we can go there and spend the time and be like Him and model Him, right? He showed us how to always be connected with Him and with God, the Father, always praying, even in the last minutes.

You look at Matthew 28, “When He went to the disciples, to a place called Gethsemane.” And He said to his pastor, “You stay there. I’m going to go there to pray.” And what did disciples do? Sleeping. And He called Him three times with a question. “Can you not even watch for even one hour with me?” Huh, that was hard.

But Jesus continues to awaken this desire to come to know Him every day, to deepen this relationship with Him every day. And not to be afraid because Jesus loves us and He want us to be together with Him. He want us to continue cultivating holiness, a life of holiness. Right? A life of holiness in the transfiguration.

I know Peter wanted to build three tents there for them, but it’s just an aspect of renewing us, showing us that He’s God. He will renew you in the life of holiness every time we invite Him, we get transfigured with Him. You know, get renewed through Him and with Him. Love Jesus so much. So, so, so, so. I don’t know. So beautiful. He reminds us to love one another as He have loved us.

A Personal Story

The other day, I cleaned up the house, the living room. I went outside to do some few things. And when I came back in, it’s all mess again, right? And I realized that my little one, Sierra, had made a mess. Well, she made a mess and his older brother was there. And as a dad, “Who made this mess?” And I could tell by the way, Sierra was looking at me, she was the one who made the mess.

But his brother, who loves her very much stepped up and said, “It was my fault. I’ll clean it up.” Yeah. I just witnessed that just the other day. And I’m thinking, yeah, good job. Great. You can take someone else’s place, even though it was not your fault. You said it’s your fault. And Sierra is just there smiling very innocently. Even though I knew that she was the one who made the mess. So I asked Joey later, “Why did you do that?” He said, “Because I love her. I love Sierra so much. I took her place.” That touched me. He was willing to, you know, to step out there and clean the mess up, even though it was not his.

Ways to Relate With Jesus

And I think Jesus invites us. That’s what Jesus did for us. He came, took our place, showed us how to love, to love deeply. You and I are being invited in this love. Jesus is the way. Jesus has shown us how to love but He is love, God is love. So with God, whoever has God, has love. Because without God, there’s no love. Amen. Amen.

So I want you to encourage you today, as you go through your day, think about that love of God, that love of Jesus, that He was willing and He chose to take our place, your place, my place on the cross. When you’re going through a hard time, realize He was feeling sleepy too. Do you remember when in Matthew, when He got into the boat and the disciples followed Him and then He fell asleep? Have you ever fallen asleep in the church? The priest is there during consecration and you’re falling asleep, maybe most of you’re not, or you get distracted, you know, or you get hungry during church and you start thinking, Ah, that peanut butter and jelly, you know, or that breakfast is still on the oven. You know, He just got hungry too. He got sleepy. Jesus participated and attended a wedding. All the things that we got through, He did those things in His full humanity. So when we got Him, we got Him as a brother. We got Him as a friend who understands.

To Become Sons and Daughters of God

The fourth reason the Catechism states is, “So that He can make us, the partakers of the divine nature. So that we can receive the divine sonship. and become sons and daughters of God, to make us share us in His divinity.” That’s powerful. I want to share eternity with God. That’s my desire, my goal in life, to live, to experience, to share God, to share the joy of Christ, to unite myself with Him so that in the end, I will be able to share eternity with Him.

What’s your goal in life? When you hear Jesus came and He loves you, and He invites you to continually have a continual relationship with Him, why do you think that is? I want to spend eternity with God. I want to spend heaven. I want to be in heaven. Do you want to be in heaven? Do you want to be in heaven? Jesus love you my friend. Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you. And He’s inviting you today in this talk, through this talk, through be this video, to realize that whatever you go through, Jesus went through. He got tired. He had a plan. Just like you and I have plans. He hung out with his friends. But most importantly, He went through suffering. He went through pain, the trials and for us every day there’s an opportunity to unite ourselves with Christ. Whether you go to daily mass or in your prayer life, to live everything aside, leave everything aside, kneel down and give thanks to God and offer, uniting our suffering with Him, our joys, our pains, our suffering, our chaos, special day to this world.

A Journey With Jesus

I don’t know what’s going on with your life, my friend, but I do know one thing that Christ came to this world and we receive Him in the Eucharist every Sunday and every day because He want to share in your life. He want to be in your life. He want to be involved and engaged. He want to journey with you. He want to help you carry the burden. “Come all of you who are heavy, who have heavy loads, who are heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest.” Come, He invites us. He wants your heart. He wants your heart. He want to renew. He want to rejuvenate. He want to cultivate that relationship with you. He is pursuing you. Can you believe that, that Jesus is pursuing you? He’s saying, “Face me. I’m right here.”

Ah, this is so powerful. Thank you, Jesus. Because He never stops. He never stops. Because God’s desire itself is written in your heart. And He never ceases to find you. He never ceases to come after you. Right? He want you to find Him. And do we encouraged by that, that God Himself is never tired of calling you, of inviting you, of showing up in your life.

And all we’re going to do is to open our hearts where there is hardness of heart. We open ourselves to Him and say, “Lord, look at me. Look at my heart, I’m hurting, I’m in pain. I’m in agony. Where are you? Heal me. Lord, I don’t know what’s going on. Come to my life.” Go to the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Allow Him to see through your heart. Give your lifetime. He died for you. He died for me. And all He wants is you. All He wants is you. So today, my friend, let’s strive to emulate this great love, the great love of God that He chose to send His only begotten son. So that through this love of the death on the cross, we may be renewed, we may be renewed, and not only will be renewed, but we can hope that we’ll enjoy eternity with Him forever.

Things to Do to Prepare for Jesus

So today I ask you this, what is it that you’re going through? Where would you like Jesus to visit in your life, your relationships, your work, your personal life? Where do you want Him to come? Are you ready to say yes to Him? Are you ready to say yes, Jesus, I want you in my life? When was the last time you visited the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to be reconciled to God, to be reconciled with God.

If you haven’t, why haven’t you? Take a moment this week, take a moment today as you prepare for Jesus, as you prepare for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Take a moment. Visit Adoration with a piece of paper. Sometimes it’s good to go with a piece of paper. Write all the reasons why you haven’t visited. Write journal list of your sins down. Thank God to confession. He’s already there waiting for you. He want to reconcile. He want you to be a part. He want you to share in his divinity.

Following God’s will, Jesus has shown us how to follow God’s will. There’s nothing better that uniting ourselves with Jesus and asking Him every day, “Jesus is this God’s will what I’m doing? Jesus, where I’m headed. Jesus, be with me. Jesus, walk with me. I want to do father’s will. Jesus, you did.” My friend, if you do those things, this Advent Season, as you prepare yourself for Christmas, this will be a totally different Christmas. Why? You’ll be filled with joy, you’ll be filled with joy. You’ll be filled with God’s grace. You’ll be filled. He’ll be filled because Jesus came here so that you can have joy in abundance, joy in full. And that’s what He wants for you. That’s what I want for you too, to be filled by God Himself. What the significance of Jesus coming here and why Jesus came? For you and for me. Because He loves you dearly. He loves us dearly. And He want us to make sure that He spends and we go to heaven and spend eternity with Him. He want to reconcile us.

And I thank the Lord for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I thank the Lord for being present in the Holy Eucharist, that within the church you’ll find Him, you’ll encounter Him. Are you willing to say yes to Him? Yes, Jesus. I am willing to say yes to you. Come in my life. Come now, Lord. Renew me. Come now, Lord. Help me to see those areas that I need to improve. Help me to see the areas in my own life, then interchange so that I can experience your love more deeply. That I can love those people around me more deeply. Just as you want me to. Just as you have commanded me to. Thank you, Jesus. Praise you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Praise you, Jesus.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

About John Kinuthia

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