Embracing Humanity: A journey towards becoming flesh
Embracing Humanity: A journey towards becoming flesh

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Embracing Humanity: A journey towards becoming flesh

Author : Isabelle Hamley
£9.99

BRF Advent Book 2024 – readings and reflections by Isabelle Hamley

Isabelle Hamley explores what it meant for God to become flesh and how this enables us to understand what it means to be human. Seeing humanity in a new light. God became flesh at Christmas. But how does God, who created all things, live within the limitations of humanity – limitations that humanity itself often resents and tries to transcend? And what does it truly mean to be human?

As contemporary society grapples with questions of identity, justice and medical ethics, Embracing Humanity deftly explores how different aspects of being human are both inhabited and transformed in the incarnation.

Through the lens of Advent and Christmas, Isabelle Hamley guides us through daily reflections and prayers, encouraging us to meditate on being human in the light of God's choice to reach out to us in Jesus.



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Title Embracing Humanity: A journey towards becoming flesh
Author Isabelle Hamley
Description

Isabelle Hamley explores what it meant for God to become flesh and how this enables us to understand what it means to be human. Seeing humanity in a new light. God became flesh at Christmas. But how does God, who created all things, live within the limitations of humanity – limitations that humanity itself often resents and tries to transcend? And what does it truly mean to be human?

As contemporary society grapples with questions of identity, justice and medical ethics, Embracing Humanity deftly explores how different aspects of being human are both inhabited and transformed in the incarnation.

Through the lens of Advent and Christmas, Isabelle Hamley guides us through daily reflections and prayers, encouraging us to meditate on being human in the light of God's choice to reach out to us in Jesus.

Details
  • Product code: 9781800392267
  • Published: 20 September 2024
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 152
  • Dimensions: 130mm wide and 198mm high

Isabelle Hamley explores what it meant for God to become flesh and how this enables us to understand what it means to be human. Seeing humanity in a new light. God became flesh at Christmas. But how does God, who created all things, live within the limitations of humanity – limitations that humanity itself often resents and tries to transcend? And what does it truly mean to be human?

As contemporary society grapples with questions of identity, justice and medical ethics, Embracing Humanity deftly explores how different aspects of being human are both inhabited and transformed in the incarnation.

Through the lens of Advent and Christmas, Isabelle Hamley guides us through daily reflections and prayers, encouraging us to meditate on being human in the light of God's choice to reach out to us in Jesus.

Isabelle Hamley is a theologian, writer and broadcaster currently working as principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge. She was previously the theological adviser to the House of Bishops in the Church of England and chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. She has also worked as a probation officer, lecturer, parish priest and university chaplain.

Transforming Ministry online 07.11.24. Review by Margaret Tinsley

The BRF Advent Book for 2024, sub-titled ‘A journey towards becoming flesh’, is divided into days, covering the Advent period up to Christmas. The material for each day consists of a Bible passage, commentary, some ideas for reflection and a prayer. In addition, at the back of the book, there are suggestions for group study, handily divided into four sections, suitable for the four weeks of Advent. The commentary is both challenging and approachable. Isabelle Hamley focuses throughout on the amazing gift God gave to the world: Jesus becoming flesh and so taking upon himself all the dangers and the joys which living as a human being involves. Each day is an examination of the way God chose and embraced the human world, shown through the human birth and life of his Son. The passages and commentary explore themes such as loneliness and relationship, lament and hope, bodily resurrection, human uniqueness and limitations, to name but a few. What is clear throughout is that salvation comes by embracing humanity – hence the title – not by trying to renounce it. One delightful touch, reminding us of this humanity, is the fingerprint which appears on the front cover and at many points in the text. I heartily recommend this book as a useful and thought-provoking preparation for Christmas.

Reviewed by Margaret Tinsley

Church Times 25.10.24. Review by Mike Starkey

There is a nice touch on the cover of this Advent book from the Principal of the theological college Ridley Hall, Cambridge. In a starry Christmas sky above a snowy landscape, what first appears to be a moon turns out to be a human fingerprint. The fingerprint motif is continued in each of the daily Advent readings.

Hamley wryly reflects in her introduction that she is writing a book on God made flesh in an era when humans seem more eager than ever to escape the flesh. Virtual reality and a growing range of options for bodily modification allow us to change our given flesh. They even hold out the hope of casting off its limitations altogether.

 Hamley offers a Bible reading, reflection, questions for discussion, and a prayer for each day in Advent. At the end of the book are suggestions for group study. A core theme is the vigorous earthiness of the biblical hope. The Good News is for the whole person; the vision of eternity is bodily resurrection; in Hebrew thought, you don’t “have” a body: you are a body. Matter matters. 

Other themes explored include contemporary loneliness and relationality; human fragility in an anxious culture; human limitations and localities; lament and hope; the Covid pandemic and the fear of death; violence and oppression; home and global migration. The author asks the reader to reflect on what it means for faith and spirituality not to somehow hover above the solidity of the world, but to be firmly rooted in places and bodies. God brings salvation not by removing us from our humanity, but by entering it.

Hamley’s real gift in this book is an intelligent pulling together of classic Advent biblical themes with contemporary cultural themes and references touching on human embodiment. It is a wonderful little book, in more senses than one.

The Revd Mike Starkey is a London-based writer, and former Head of Church Growth for the diocese of Manchester.

 

Together Magazine September 2024. Advent round up by Daryl Wearring

How does God, who created all things come down to earth to live within the limitations of the humanity he created? In this new BRF Ministries Advent book for 2024 Isabelle Hamley guides through daily reflections and prayers, encouraging us to meditate on being human in the light of God’s choice to reach out to us in Jesu – God with us.