Three Ways the Incarnation Changes Your Daily Work — Nashville Institute for Faith and Work

In her poignant book Prayer in the Night, author Tish Harrison Warren writes on the Incarnation, “The light came into the darkness and did ordinary work.” Reflecting on how Jesus spent most of his adult life doing the work of a carpenter, what Warren illuminates for us here is something that’s often overlooked within the Christmas story: God came to earth and worked.

In our condensed version of the Gospel, we can often skim over this fact in pursuit of a more dramatic narrative, remembering only the miracles, the cross, the empty tomb. Of course, the coming of Christ culminated in him providing the atonement for our sins by giving up himself at Golgotha. No one would argue that making tables is more important than Jesus’s sacrifice at the cross.

However, in a weary world desperate for meaningful labor and frustrated by futility, what relevance might the reality of Christmas have for our daily work? In other words, how does the miraculous birth of a Jewish child to a poor family over 2,000 years ago change our vocational lives today?

The Incarnation gives our work dignity

Paul, in a beautiful passage about the humility of Christ, writes in Philippians 2:6-7: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” Rather than manipulating his status as the Son of God to be catered to by the work of others, “God became flesh and built some furniture” as Warren writes.

“However, in a weary world desperate for meaningful labor and frustrated by futility, what relevance might the reality of Christmas have for our daily work?”

In a world that often holds a view of work as a necessary evil, and one that prescribes a vocational hierarchy in which some people’s work is valued while others’ is denigrated, Jesus rebukes these ideas in his Incarnation by coming to earth and making tables.

While readers of the Bible may often wonder why Jesus didn’t begin his ministry sooner, Scripture seems to testify to the fact that it was partially Jesus’ manual labor as a carpenter that God saw fit to prepare Him for his ministry later on. As Jordan Raynor writes, “Work isn’t beneath the God of the Bible.”

THE INCARNATION GIVES OUR WORK PURPOSE

So, if our work has dignity because Christ came to earth and got his hands dirty, how does the Incarnation ascribe a sense of purpose to our labors? While a dissertation could be written on the topic, I would summarize the answer to that question this way: God loved the world so much that he entered into it.

All over the Gospels, we see that Jesus often echoes a form of these words: “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). As the divine Son of God, Christ’s birth inaugurated the kingdom of God here on earth. Living on the other side of the resurrection, we now live in the in-between, or the “already-not-yet” in which the kingdom of God has come in Christ, and yet we still wait for the second coming of Christ for heaven to fully come to earth.

What this means for our daily work is that Christ’s Incarnation fully affirms the value of this world while also serving as a signpost for the world to come. If God cares about this physical world we currently inhabit, our work is a critical way of stewarding that world in creating beauty and order out of chaos and disorder. Since God will come again to fully usher in the new heavens and the new earth, our work that we do now will last into eternity.

“What this means for our daily work is that Christ’s Incarnation fully affirms the value of this world while also serving as a signpost for the world to come.”

As N.T. Wright eloquently states, “What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future.” The Incarnation of Christ means that the kingdom of God is at hand, so we better get to work.

the incarnation means we work with god

In Hebrews 4:15, the author writes, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” As a beloved son or daughter of God, your High Priest came to earth, entered into the muck and mire of daily labor, and struggled with the toil of work—just like you do.

It is this humility of Jesus that allows us to connect to his own humanity. Be comforted by knowing that Jesus is able to sympathize with your weaknesses, including frustrating fallouts with customers, supply chain delays, and wobbly legs.

Yet, we live after Christ’s ascension. In John 14, Jesus explains to his perplexed disciples that he will leave soon to be with the Father, but will send the Holy Spirit: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.”

“As a beloved son or daughter of God, your High Priest came to earth, entered into the muck and mire of daily labor, and struggled with the toil of work—just like you do. ”

Because Christ came into the world, lived as the Messiah, died a criminal’s death, was raised to life, and has ascended to the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit now lives inside followers of Jesus. What this means for our work is that we not only work for God, but we work with God.

Have you ever stopped to think about how God dwells with you within your work? While culturally we espouse a “grit-and-grind” mentality where it is all up to us to make things happen on our own, Scripture invites us to see our work as a way of partnering with God in what He is doing in the world. Rather than gritting our teeth and making it on our own, God invites us to receive peace and wisdom in our work through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

your labor is not in vain

In the third verse of their song “Your Labor is Not in Vain” by The Porter’s Gate, the lyrics proclaim:

“The vineyards you plant will bear fruit

The fields will sing out and rejoice with the truth,

For all that is old will at last be made new:

The vineyards you plant will bear fruit.”

Then, in the refrain:

“For I am with you, I am with you.

I am with you, I am with you

For I have called you,

Called you by name

Your labor is not in vain.”

This Advent season, be encouraged that, as Warren reminds us, “God entered this world of toil and did good work.” Christmas means that our work has indelible dignity, incredible importance, and is performed with God. Your labor, dear Christian, is not in vain. Rejoice in the Messiah who came to earth to both build furniture and redeem the world.