On Being Human

"A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human."
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

I stole this quote from a friend's status on facebook and reposted it. Another friend of mine asked for my commentary on it which made me reflect a bit more deeply. So without reading the original context of this quote, this is what I heard in it. :)

As Christians it seems that the word “human” has a negative connotation. When we talk about our humanity it is often linked with our weakness. “Oh well, I'm only human!” But what does being human really mean? Could being "deeply human" mean living in the fullness of who God has created us to be? Indeed, God created us to be human from the beginning.

I went through a devotional book this last advent season called “God With Us”. It focuses on the incarnation in ways I had never considered. One thought that was most striking to me was that Jesus did not primarily stoop down into our humanness to bring the holiness of heaven down to us, but to raise our humanness back up to the heavenly where it was created to be. He came to restore dignity and holiness to our humanity! Jesus never cast off the human flesh, but brought it with Him back into heaven. He, as we speak, is still human! And we, in our very human flesh, are also raised with Him and seated with Him in the heavenlies, united with Him in humanness. We are his Body. And though these mortal bodies that carry our humanity are wasting away and will die, they will be fully restored to match the body Jesus now resides in. He did not detest the flesh, but sought to restore it and return it to the dignity it had from the beginning. He brought back the dignity of all that it is to be human, so that we can live more fully into our humanity. He lived, worked, played and loved as a fully free human engaging all of this human life loved by the Father; and He invites us to do the same.

The truth is, we cannot bear the image of God and therefore “be godly” apart from being human. To ere is to be human, yes, but it is also human to learn from our errors and grow. To have compassion, to live and work together in community is to be human. The desire to create and recreate, to enjoy beauty and celebrate is to be human. To come together, to reach out, to adventure, explore, discover, listen, heal; human! To be alive and engage the Trinity in relationship in a way angels envy; this is what it is to be human. This is what it is to reflect and relate to the Creator.

In this way, to live deeply into our redeemed humanness is to be truly godly.