And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us... John 1:14 The incarnation is an irrepeatable event, but its proleptic and eschatological reality still bears upon the very soil in which the cross of Christ is planted. Though the Word became flesh once and for all in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that reality continues to reverberate through history. The Christ-event is not locked away in the past or sealed off in heavenly transcendence. It presses forward—into our time, our communities, and our relationships—calling forth new embodiments of divine love. The church, as the body of Christ, cannot be any less enfleshed than the man from Nazareth. To confess that Christ has taken flesh is to confess that his body continues to take flesh in us. The church’s life, therefore, must have consequences in the life of the world. The Word became, is, and must still be flesh. Ecclesiology must also be flesh. We cannot reduce discipleship to a set of internal dispositions or purely spiritual ideals...