Friday, September 7 – Male and Female God Created Us

Colossians 1:15-20

Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God
and the first-born of all creation,
for in him were created
all things in heaven and on earth:
everything visible and everything invisible,
Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers -
all things were created through him and for him.
Before anything was created, he existed,
and he holds all things in unity.
Now the Church is his body,
he is its head.
As he is the Beginning,
he was the first to be born from the dead,
sot hat he should be first in every way;
because God wanted all perfection
to be found in him
and all things to be reconciled through him and forhim,
everything in heaven and everything on earth,
when he made peace
by his death on the cross.
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Luke 5:33-39

The Pharisees and the scribes said to Jesus, “John’s disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees too, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Jesus replied, “Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, that will be the time when they will fast.”

He also told them this parable. “No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; if he does, not only will he have torn the new one, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.

“And nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost. No; new wine must be put into fresh skins. And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. ‘The old is good,’ he says.”
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Why did God choose to become a human being? And why did God choose to become a man, instead of a woman? Have you ever asked these question? Have you ever thought of the answers?

That God chose to become a human being, shows us that the human being is special. Through his choice, God shows us, at the very least, that the human body is a good thing. Some people, some Christians as well, seem to believe that the body is sinful, and the spirit is good. But the fact that God became human shows us that the human body is good.

In fact, I would propose that God chose to become a human being to show all human beings that there is a message written in our human bodies. We are, after all, created in the image of God, and perhaps God has written a message in the design of our bodies. Perhaps a message of who God really is, and perhaps a message that will bring us happiness.

Now here is an interesting question: Why did God become incarnated as a man? Why did he not choose to become a woman? Why specifically a man?

One answer we like to give is the social reason – that in order for this God-person to gather a group of people to follow him, he had to be a man, so that people would listen to him. But this God-person also chose to use the cross – a symbol of torture and death – to become the symbol of life. Throughout his life, Jesus did things that were not socially acceptable. He challenged the understanding of what was socially acceptable. So, no, God did not become a man so that he could be accepted socially. There must be another reason.

But what reason could it be? In order to understand why God chose to become a man, we must look at what is the one quality that defines what a man ought to be. While we are thinking of this, we can also ask, what is the one quality that defines what a woman ought to be. Now there are many qualities that define masculinity and feminity, but if there is one that defines each, for a man, it would have to be Initiation, and for a woman, it would have to be Response.

Now God is both masculine and feminine. God has to be, if both Man and Woman are created in God’s image. But Jesus is a man. Why? In choosing to be incarnated as a man, God is saying (reminding us actually) that God is the one who initiates. God is the one who makes the first move in our love relationship with him. We, the Church, is the one that responds. That is why the Church is always referred to as “her”, never “him”.

This love relationship between Jesus and the Church is a special one – it is a spousal relationship. Jesus frequently refers to himself as the Bridegroom, as he does in today’s gospel reading. The Church is frequently referred to as the Bride. When Jesus died on the cross, the marriage was consummated. Bridegroom and Bride became one Body, which is why in the first reading, we see that the Church is Christ’s body.

When we understand that Christ could NOT have been a woman… when we understand that Christ HAS to be a male… we understand why the priest, who acts in the person of Christ, has to be male. It is not a question of power or sexism. It is a question of understanding and accepting the gift of our own sexuality – who we are, and why God made us male and female.

It is no surprise that a church who accepts woman as ordained ministers of the altar also accepts homosexual marriages. But such a church can never explain why Jesus had to have been a man, why Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church the Bride. Such a church cannot explain why God made us male and female.

Lastly, I mentioned the message that God has written into the design of our human bodies as male and female. What is that message? It is the message of love. Not just any kind of love, but the spousal love that God has for us, his Bride.
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Prayer and Thanksgiving:
Dear Lord, we thank you for creating us male and female, for being incarnated as man, reminding us that it is you, God, who initiates the love relationship we share. Help us to cherish our sexuality as man and woman. Help us to cherish the special bond of marriage, the secret to happiness that you have written into our bodies. Amen.