“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Matthew 10:40).
There is something utterly extravagant about the Incarnation. The God of Heaven has a Word to share with humankind. All right; why not send an email? Why not, simply, announce the message over heaven’s PA? But sending his Son! – what with swaddling cloths and all – well, it seems extravagant.
And Bethlehem is only the start of it. Later this Incarnate One would send his followers into the world in a similar, incarnational way. Why not, I ask, send an email? Why does God insist upon actual human beings, with all their costs and complications? I have known a few missionaries myself. I have participated in sending them into the world. I have recruited them, trained them, purchased their tickets, helped them pack their many bags, and taken them to the airport. Believe me: email is easier.
Indulge me for a moment. Let me tell you about some interesting research conducted recently at Rutgers University.
Gregory Wright, a physicist, and Christopher Rose, professor of electrical and computer engineering, conducted the research at Rutger’s Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB). They were interested in maximizing the efficiency of wireless communications – a wireless network in your office, perhaps, or the network that serves your cell phone. The researchers examined the “energy budget” involved in sending bits of information electronically. Electronic communication works great over short-distances. As distance increases, however, electronic communication becomes less and less efficient. The greater the distance, the more the signal is diluted and decays.
At the greatest distances – across interstellar space, let’s say – the problem is tremendously compounded. Sending messages electronically at these distances is fantastically impractical It would be far more efficient, Rose suggests, to send “inscribed matter.” He means a letter. Or a book. Maybe something written on metal or in stone. But when I read the study, I thought of a Person.
“Sending messages inscribed on some material can be strikingly more energy efficient than communicating by electromagnetic waves,” Dr. Rose explains. Such a “package” is not diluted over distance. The “signal” is preserved. And if all goes well, where it lands, it stays.
Dr. Rose speculates that if some extraterrestrial civilization were interested in communicating with Earth, they may not use the radio. The conjecture should not surprise Christians. The greatest communication event of all time, you see, required the enfleshment of the Word of God. Email is great – but sometimes will not do.
And it is still true of Gospel communication. In the end the process requires flesh and blood – “inscribed matter” – that can take your hand, look you in the eye, and demonstrate The Message in an actual committed life.
If you are a Christian, you are “inscribed” in just such a way. It is the ongoing process of the incarnation – God’s model for Gospel communication. There is no “heavenly PA.” God sends you. _
(You can find a description of the research at Rutgers University.)