I saw Elvis Presley in Searcy the other day. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of a business celebrating its grand opening — slicked-back jet black hair, sideburns, sunglasses, white polyester jumpsuit, the whole nine yards. Singing into an oversize microphone, he reeled in customers as his voice boomed from speakers turned up high.
An impersonator is a talented fake who caricatures the well-known features of a famous person. The impersonator attempts to appear to be who he is not, and to do so he must suppress his own personality and put on the trappings of another. He wears a self-made veneer, and it is the veneer that attracts folks to his craft. He is a makeup artist, a mimic, an impressionist. He pretends, and everyone is in on the charade. I knew that was not Elvis in Searcy the other day.
There were people many hundreds of years ago who claimed Jesus was an impersonator of sorts — some said he was not the Son of God, others that he was God’s Son but had not really assumed our nature. They said that in the Incarnation, the Son of God had not taken on a human nature but merely pretended to do so, giving the appearance of being human as if wearing a costume.
The Church pointed out these errors, because in truth the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, remaining divine, took our nature that we might be saved through him. There was no pretense, no veneer, no costume. Jesus Christ is not part God and part man but true God and true man. At the Second Vatican Council, the Church reaffirmed this constant teaching:
“The Son of God … worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.” (Gaudium et Spes 22, 2)
The importance of this truth is enormous. As one of the prefaces for Christmas proclaims, “Christ is your Son before all ages, yet now he is born in time. He has come to lift up all things to himself, to restore unity to creation, and to lead mankind from exile into your heavenly kingdom.” Another preface states, “Your eternal Word has taken upon himself our human weakness, giving our mortal nature immortal value. So marvelous is this oneness between God and man that in Christ man restores to man the gift of everlasting life.”
By his incarnation, Christ changed humanity forever. In the same document quoted above, the Second Vatican Council taught that “by his incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man.” Because he has joined himself to us in such a complete way, we are able to join ourselves to him through love and discipleship.
When we speak of imitating the Lord Jesus, it is not imitation as a form of mimicry, but imitation as an acceptance of his way as our way, and especially as a realization that he has joined himself to us in his Incarnation and at baptism. As the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” states, “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us.” (521) St. Paul told the Colossians that he was called to be a minister of the Church and to proclaim the mystery hidden for ages but now made manifest: “it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.” (Colossians 1:27) We dare to imitate Christ because we know he is in us.
I wonder if at times we approach the Christian life as an impersonator might a famous person. Are we to put on Christ as a costume, re-make ourselves so that we appear to be like Jesus, while everyone knows we are not? And even if we craft a good imitation, won’t it be true that we are still not him? As Paul explained, there is an extraordinary mystery we have been given to share: Christ alive in us, Christ at work in us, living his mystery deeply in our souls, making his presence known to others through our discipleship.
It is Christ who makes us Christian and who, living in us, re-makes us in his image. “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20) We are not called to impersonate him but to remain in union with him. He will transform and mold us into his disciples. Not only that — people who see us will know they have come face-to-face with him.
Do you have an intention for Bishop Sartain’s prayer? If so, send it to him at Bishop Sartain’s Prayer List, Diocese of Little Rock, 2500 North Tyler St., P.O. Box 7239, Little Rock, AR 72217.