Incarnation is at the heart of Anglican theology. Throughout Christian history, believers have sought to express what incarnation means for us in our Christian walk. In the 14^(th) century, Catherine of Siena, in what she relates as her “Dialog with God,” heard the Divine say, “You are another me.” Christ Jesus says the same to you and me if we have ears to hear. That means it is up to us to be God’s love in the world today. It was the insight of Teresa of Avila in the 16^(th) century that God has no hands but ours, no feet but ours; in other words, if we don’t incarnate God’s love in our time and place, it won’t happen. Today’s gospel lesson describes how that incarnation might be lived out in our lives as we are called to feed the hungry, slake the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the prisoner, or as the prophet Ezekiel expresses it: seek the lost, bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak. That’s a tall order!

None of us can do all those things for all people all the time, but we can open our hearts and allow God to use us in the various situations of our lives, in the opportunities to demonstrate self-giving love that come our way. We can, day by day, draw closer to God and gratefully accept the divine sanctifying touch transforming us little by little into the image of God we were created to be. As we are enabled to surrender our self-centeredness, our insecurities, our fears and anxieties, and to trust in our ever-faithful God to heal all our woundedness, we will come to experience the revelation of God in our lives just as those saints of long ago. We will know what it is to have “the eyes of [our] hearts enlightened” so that we will see the face of Christ Jesus in the needs of the world and be inspired to reach out in compassion to those God brings our way, allowing the Christ within to reveal his love to the world through us.

In some holy and mysterious way, we can be God’s hands and feet in the world; we can be the incarnation of God’s love here and now.