TRANSHISTORICAL INTERCOURSE

Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity: Volume 1

“The same could be said about the birth of the church, which resulted from the work of Jesus. God had prepared the way so that the disciples, after receiving the power of the Holy Spirit, could be witnesses…(Acts 1:8). Therefore, the church was never disconnected from the world around it.”

To me, the advent of the church is one of the most significant events in human history. Understandably, the word (church) causes immeasurable reactions to those who hear it. The stings of its oppressive presence in history are often what’s recalled. But what is the essence of the church? Gonzalez’s language helps us. From a historical perspective, the church is “birthed” into the world as a direct result of the “work of Jesus.” It continues, in the wake of the Spirit, “never disconnected” from the world but precisely for its life. Through the Incarnation, the church is a witness-bearing, transformative inbreaking of God’s future for the cosmos. In other words, the world “finds its restoration and fulfillment in the Church.” Because of this, the church is not merely a sect, community, or movement. Instead, it is a transhistorical intercourse. It is a womb: the generative gathering of loving consent that births newness of life for the sake of the world. In this way, Mary’s “yes” is the site of the church’s origin within time. If the church is the ongoing work of the Total Christ (Christ and his body: the church), then Mary is the location of its historic beginnings. She mothers the church in her womb by her response to God. In the new Eve’s consent, “the Church has its living and personal beginning.” The church is the collective “Yes and Amen,” born of a woman “in the fullness of time,” within history, that births Christ in our midst, connecting us back to the world around us for our shared life and joy.

(Icon: Annunciation, Ivanka Demchuk)