{"id":47662,"date":"2014-12-31T14:15:07","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T14:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/methodist_bishop_william_willimon-word_made_flesh2014\/"},"modified":"2014-12-31T14:15:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T14:15:07","slug":"methodist_bishop_william_willimon-word_made_flesh2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=47662","title":{"rendered":"(Methodist Bishop) William Willimon&#8211;Word Made Flesh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a story so strange we could not have dreamed it up by ourselves, this story of how God was incarnate in Jesus the Christ. An embarrassing pregnancy, a poor peasant couple forced to become undocumented immigrants in Egypt soon after the birth of their baby, King Herod\u2019s slaughter of the Jewish boy babies in a vain attempt to put an end to this new \u201cKing,\u201d\u009d From the beginning the story of Jesus is the strangest story of all. A Messiah who avoids the powerful and the prestigious and goes to the poor and dispossessed? A Savior who is rejected by many of those whom he sought to save? A King who reigns from a bloody cross? Can this one with us be God?<\/p>\n<p>And yet Christians believe that this story, for all its strangeness, is true. Here we have a truthful account of how our God read us back into the story of God. This is a truthful depiction not only of who God really is but also of how we who were lost got found, redeemed, restored, and saved by a God who refused to let our rejection and rebellion (our notorious \u201cGod problem\u201d\u009d) be the final word in the story.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/willimon.blogspot.com\/2011\/11\/word-made-flesh.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a story so strange we could not have dreamed it up by ourselves, this story of how God was incarnate in Jesus the Christ. An embarrassing pregnancy, a poor peasant couple forced to become undocumented immigrants in Egypt soon<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=47662\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,42,575,162,187,360,435,154,184,439,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-religion-news-commentary","category-christmas","category-christology","category-church-year-liturgical-seasons","category-methodist","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-other-churches","category-parish-ministry","category-preaching-homiletics","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}