Incarnation as the model for mission

We just celebrated Christmas. The big deal is that God became a man and came to live on the block in downtown Nazareth. He set into motion what was to become the essential model for the mission of his people. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you into the world” (John 17:18, 20:21). Incarnation is the very heart and nature of mission and it can’t be anything else. We’re called to go into the world because it’s the world that God so loves, the world that needs to be made right, the world into which the Kingdom needs to come. The particularity of incarnation is that it teaches us that things are always changed and transformed from the inside. God came into the world in the person of Jesus and he comes into our very lives through his Spirit. God indwells us and...