Confirmation Class for Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Key Bible Readings:
Philippians 2:5-8
Colossians 1:15-20

Problem Statement:
I don't understand how Jesus could be fully human and fully divine.

Takeaway:
Since God became human, we can proclaim Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.

What Students Need to Know...
1. Jesus is fully human and fully God. At the same time. All the time. And trying to figure out how that can be the case can make your head hurt. A lot.

2. Even if we have a hard time explaining how Jesus could be both fully human and fully divine, we can still affirm the cause and effect of this paradox. God became fully human while remaining fully divine so that we might know God in a way we were unable to before Jesus. God chose us -- chose to become like us, to live like us -- and as a result, we can say that Jesus is Emmanuel (God with us).

3. The understanding of Jesus as fully human and fully divine became the accepted position of the church only after it rejected many other explanations. For some people, it's easier to understand who and what Jesus is by first clarifying who and what he isn't. We might struggle to understand how Jesus could be both fully human and fully divine, but most of us can agree that Jesus was not faking his humanity or his divinity. Somehow, he was truly both.