There is an ancient Celtic belief, taught to us by Eriugena, that salvation happened primarily through the incarnation rather than the crucifixion. It was the bringing together of heaven and earth, spirit and matter, creator and creation, that healed the world. Jesus is the celestial physician, the healer of the material universe, and he came to a world which was very sick. The world was out of balance (and still is) and the incarnation restored balance (and it still does).
The cure for our spiritual illness is incarnation. It is by bringing the body and the soul into harmony that health is restored to the individual and it is by bringing the materiality of the world into harmony with the peace of Heaven that health is restored to humanity as a whole. Perhaps this is why Mary sang her famous magnificat in anticipation of Jesus’s arrival. Her prophetic prediction about Jesus’ birth was that he would do as God has always done. She said,
“He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.”
This is very reminiscent of the words of John the Baptist who spoke of the coming of the Lord like this,
“Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.”
The reason for Jesus to be born was clear to both these prophets who foretold his coming. God was coming to earth to set things straight, to bring our material culture in line with spiritual truth. The rulers of the world are the rich people who oppress the poor and they are the mountains which will be made low. The humble and poor are the valleys which will be raised up. There is a lack of balance in our society and Jesus came to make the crooked roads straight, fill in the gaps, and cast down the mighty. The incarnation was to restore balance and balance is what it means to be healthy.
And so Jesus is the great physician and harmony is the medicine our world needs. We need to bring our bodies and our souls together rather than hate our bodies for the sake of our souls. We need to work towards healing our broken society rather than assuming life on earth is a write off and will always be wicked. As heirs of Jesus’ divine incarnation, we are the physicians now. We must work to heal the world. The medicine Jesus gave is slow acting by human standards. We have come a long ways towards understanding the illness which affects us, and we have already made great improvements towards healing it. But there is still much work to be done.
If we wish to heal the world, we must first heal ourselves. This is why the teaching of healing vices by their opposites is so essential in Celtic Christianity. The idea of contraries is what Mary and John were describing. It is a way of seeing the places where mountains and valleys are causing illness and counteracting them with their opposites. If a mountain is too high, it needs to be made low. If a valley is too low, it needs to be lifted up. It’s a very simple but profound teaching.
So, my dear sisters and brothers, this Advent I encourage you to consider how the coming of the long-expected Christ brought balance, how the rulers of the world responded to his message, and how we intend to respond to it today. How can we live out incarnational theology in our own lives? What mountains do you stand on? What valleys are you stuck in? How can we, as God’s people, heal ourselves?
When discussing the way in which we are saved by the incarnation, Eriugena adds a striking commentary. Not only, he asserts, were humans saved by the incarnation, but indeed through humanity all of creation was redeemed. Eriugena taught that humanity is the midpoint of all creation, we are the focal point of the universe. This does not mean that we should be proud or arrogant, but rather that we are the image of God. To say that humanity is created in God’s image is no small claim. For Eriugena, and most Christians, God is eternal, infinite, and more than all of creation combined.
What implications does it have to say that this is the image we bear? For Eriugena, it meant that we, like Christ, contain within us the pattern of all reality. You can think of a twig of willow which, when cut from the tree and stuck in the ground, sprouts into a completely new tree and is missing nothing. The blueprint for the whole tree exists in one little twig. Eriugena believed that spirituality is prior to materiality. This means that the knowledge of something is actually more essential, in a sense more real, than the thing itself. Because humanity has the potential to understand all of creation, all of creation is actually contained within the human being. If the universe were a willow tree, we would be little twigs waiting to be stuck in the mud so we can grow.
We, as the image of God, contain the blueprint for all of creation within us. The entire universe is contained within your heart. When we heal ourselves, we heal creation, and when Jesus took on human form, he saved the entire universe because all of creation exists within the human being. Eriugena spoke about this in a dialogue with his student. The student asked,
“Shall we say that irrational animals, as well as trees, grasses, and all parts of this world from the highest down, were restored in the incarnate Word of God?”
To which Eriugena relied,
“Didn’t the Word, when assuming humanity, receive all creation, visible and invisible, and save the whole of which He received in humanity? If He received all creation by receiving human nature, surely He saved all creation and will do so for eternity.”
The whole of the cosmos is included in this. Humanity may have a privileged place in the universe, but Jesus came to save the whole of creation – including trees, stones, and animals. Christmas wasn’t just for us, but was for all of God’s creatures and we play a central role in that. By being the middle point of creation, humanity unites matter and spirit. All of reality already is made of matter and spirit but in the human being these principles are united completely. Jesus was not the only one who was both mortal and divine, we share that with him, as he was one of us.
Because we have the entire universe within us, our own spiritual health has real life consequences. It is good that Christ was born into the world, but Christ must also be born within us. We are forgetful creatures and we often lose sight of our true nature as the image of God. We live our lives as if we were all matter and no spirit. We get caught up in the material side of our existence and lose sight of the spiritual. The healing of the entire cosmos begins within your heart.
So, dear sisters and brothers, I encourage you to find the balance between what is material and what is spiritual within you. Seek to live with both these things in harmony. Do not forsake one for the other. Do not hate the body but neither neglect the spirit. And do all this for the sake of every created thing, because in some mystical sense, all creatures exist inside you.
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(Read more of the author’s writings on NewEdenMinistry.com)