One
of the most exciting things going on in the world of medicine is stem cell
transplants. Stem cells are preformative
blood cells taken from bone marrow or from whole blood. They are given to people who have blood
cancers such as Leukemia after they have had extensive chemo treatments that
have destroyed their immune system. The
stem cells start to grow and replace the patient’s immune system with mature,
healthy cells that can fight off the remaining cancer cells. The procedure is remarkably successful in
effecting a cure of certain cancers. It
has also shown promise in treating Type 1 diabetes. One cancer patient has been declared cured of
HIV/AIDS as well as being cancer free after a stem cell transplant from a
person who was HIV resistant. There are
also three other cases in which a stem cell transplant apparently cured HIV/Aids
in cancer patients but they have to give it a couple of years to make sure.
The
concept of stem cell transplantation is simple.
Insert healthy yet unformed cells into a diseased environment that has
been striped of its own compromised ability to fight the disease. As the transplanted cells grow they will fill
the host with healthy cells that can effectively fight and eliminate the
disease. I think this is a good analogy
for talking about what God is doing in his Creation through the Incarnation of
God the Son as the man Jesus. Please
humour for a moment as I explain and please keep in mind that all analogies
have their limitations.
God
created humanity in his own image. God
is Trinity; the loving communion of the “Persons” of God the Father, Son, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Three relational beings
who give themselves to each other so utterly in self-giving, unconditional
mutual love that they are in essence One.
We must define “person” as “relation being” rather than the Modern
Western definition where a person is a self-actualizing, autonomous, rational
individual. We exist as persons in
networks of relationship apart from which we have no identity. God created humanity to be, to reflect the
image of loving communion within God’s good and blessed Creation.
Humanity
is originally blessed to exist in relationship with everything in a way that is
founded in utter self-giving and unconditional mutual love. Yet, we need not look too far to ascertain
something has gone terribly wrong.
Instead of being in loving relationship with the rest of humanity and
indeed the whole Creation we humans act autonomously and use others and the
Creation for our own self-actualization in ways that seem perfectly rational
but which we will one day step back from and wonder “What was I thinking?” The end result is that we are like a virus or,
dare I say a cancer in God’s good and blessed Creation. We live by predation. We pollute.
In the pursuit of our “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness” and a good steak we actually cause poverty, hunger, and
the spread of disease. We tend to hurt
those we love the most.
We
suffer from a cancerous disease called Sin and the end result is that the image
of God in us is mutated. We try to be
God instead of reflecting the image of the loving and other serving communion
of the Trinity. Being diseased, we die
and all of Creation is subject to this futility.
Because
God loves the world and us each in it, God doesn’t abandon us to our diseased
state of mind and existence. God sees us
in our powerless state and has effected a cure, a judgement that cures, that
heals, restores, and will create anew.
As we have an “image” problem, God the Son became human as this infant
Jesus to effect the likeness of a stem cell transplant that will grow into a
new humanity, indeed a raised from the dead humanity, in whom the image of God
is restored. God put his very self into
diseased humanity and indeed into physical matter to effect a cure of Sin that
will eventually annihilate Death.
This
stem cell transplant-like cure takes place in each of us as God has sent the
Holy Spirit into each of us to heal us and transform us into the likeness of
Christ. The Holy Spirit works to cause
us to want to be healed and in turn to love unselfishly and unconditionally
each other, our neighbours near and far, and the Creation and thus foreshadowing
the coming New Creation in which this disease called Sin is cured.
By
the Incarnation of God as Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit not only are we
individuals healed, we as humanity in toto are being healed. This is where the church, Christian
fellowship, is important. Christian community
embodies this world’s hope. Christian
congregations are communities/relational networks in whom the image of God is
becoming more apparent as we struggle to live together in a Christ-like
fashion. The command to “love your neighbour as yourself” isn’t simply some
higher moral command to obey or else. It
is what humanity cured looks like and since that is what is at work in us in
Christ must we go and do likewise.
Well,
saying that sin is a disease over which we are powerless does not let us off the
hook. We are still accountable for
ourselves and responsible to live according to the cure. Just as in AA Alcoholics come to realize that
simply quitting drinking doesn’t really do anything. What heals is working the 12 Step Program and
letting God be God so that God can do what God does...heal.
So,
let us keep in mind that Christmas isn’t about a bunch of nostalgia and gift
giving that is supposed to make us feel wonderful. Though getting together with others to eat
and give gifts isn’t a bad thing. But
unfortunately, our excessive Christmas celebrating usually just stresses us out
and makes us more aware of the people who are no longer here and has the
propensity to bring out the worst in strained family dynamics. Christmas isn’t about the holiday. It is the staggering reality that God is
healing his Creation. Ponder this. Take it to heart and act accordingly. Amen.
