Lesson video

Hello and welcome to this lesson on Christianity, I am Miss Kendrick and today we're going to be looking at the belief in the incarnation.

Now this is a word that you may not have had before but a word that you will have heard before probably is Christmas or the nativity.

And these are two things that link very strongly with the Christian belief in the incarnation.

So what we're going to be looking at in this lesson, we're going to be learning the story of Jesus' birth you might already be fairly familiar with this, but I always find a few mistakes in students' understanding.

We're going to learn the meaning of the word incarnation, I promise you I'm not just going to keep on saying it without telling you what it means.

And we're going to look at the influences that the belief, in the incarnation has on Christians today.

You are going to need a pen or pencil, and ideally a different kind of pen as well, to make any corrections or additions to your answers, and you're going to need some paper to write on.

Make sure that you are in a very work friendly environment now, this might be a bit of a challenge, especially if you've got siblings and things like that.

You probably can't turn them off in the same way, that you can turn off the television or the radio.

If you're not using your phone to complete this lesson, I would advise you to turn off notifications on your phone as well, perhaps just put it in the next room, where it's not a temptation, because we're going to need, your whole brains for this lesson.

Before I start talking to you about the incarnation, and again, I will tell you what that means.

There are two key Christian beliefs I just want to go over, first and if you've done previous lessons in this unit, then hopefully they'll be fairly familiar for you.

So firstly, we are going to just recap the belief in the Trinity.

Now the Trinity is a really important belief in Christianity because it essentially explains, what Christians believe God is.

It's the traditional belief that there is one God in three persons, the father, the son, and the Holy spirit, which is beautifully demonstrated by this diagram.

Which shows the belief that all three members of the Trinity, the father, the son, and the Holy spirit are all equally God.

So often people might talk about the father as being God, as being God talk about Jesus as not being God, but traditionally Christians believe that both are equally God.

That's not to say there's not been people who've disagreed, throughout history and I would love you guys to read, into that a bit more, 'cause it's absolutely fascinating, looking at all this church history and disagreement.

About what Jesus actually is or who Jesus such he is and what God is, but for now we're focusing, on the mainstream Christian belief in the Trinity.

This is going to be very, very important for this lesson.

Next, we just need to recap the full story of the fall, and its consequences.

So again, if you took part in the previous lesson, in this unit, then I talked about the story of Adam and Eve, eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and how this brought sin into the world and caused there to be a barrier between humans and God.

So my rough diagram here shows this to an extent, it shows the idea that humans being filled with sin, are separated from God.

Now, this is due to the belief that God is perfectly good, he is so, so good that nothing bad or sinful, can enter his presence.

A good example is, think about the sun.

Now the sun is a really good thing, the sun is the reason why there is life on earth, or one of the reasons why there's life on earth, don't want the scientists correcting me and telling me there are lots of other reasons as well, because there are.

But it is a key deal, right? It's an important thing.

Now, the sun is a good thing, it's the reason why, we can have plants, it's the reason why our planet, is not just a big ball of ice and yet none of us are thinking, I think I'll go on a day trip to the sun.

Or I'll go on a holiday there, because you know that if you got anywhere near the sun, you'd be absolutely burned to a crisp.

And that's not because the sun is bad, but because it's just so powerful, isn't there? Now in a similar way, we could say that Christians believe that God is so, so good, He's the source of all things that are good, that anything evil, anything that falls short, anything remotely sinful, entering his presence would be totally obliterated.

So in that case, it's almost dangerous for a sinful human, to be in the presence of God.

Now, the thing is, Christians also believe that God, is a personal God and he's a relational God, and wants to have a relationship with humans.

Can you remember what this word omnibenevolent means? There's a clue in the word, there's something in it spelled backwards.

So omnibenevolent is the belief that God is all loving.

So he loves all humans, even with sin thrown into the deal and therefore he wants to have, a personal relationship with humans.

But Christians also believe that God is just now to be just means to be fair.

And if God is a fair judge, then it would be unjust or unfair to leave sin unpunished.

So for example, in my classroom, if somebody was going around stealing and I said, "Yeah, but I love all of my students, I care about all of them.

So I'm not to going to punish them." Then everyone else would go Miss that so unfair and actually lots of them would be quite angry.

So being just, or fair is a very good quality of God.

It's an important thing and Christians would say, that is part of his perfection, but it does cause this problem when it comes to sin of this broken relationship between God and humans.

Now, Christians believe that there is good news, despite this belief that people are sinful and this belief that God is just and fair because they believe that God acted in history to fix this broken relationship, between God and humans.

In parts that was done through the law and the stories that you can read in the Old Testament, about the covenants with the Jews.

So covenant means promise, so laws like the 10 commandments and things like that.

But Christians believed that, that couldn't cover everything, even with all of the rules about how to live, it didn't fully deal with the problem of sin.

And that's partly because of the belief in original sin, the sin that all humans are born with, according to mainstream Christian belief, that causes humans to lean towards sin, rather than to doing something good.

So the question really of this lesson and of Christianity in the whole is this question of how do Christians believe God works to fix this broken relationship between God and humans? One of the most famous Bible verses is John 3:16, which says, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but will have eternal life.

Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God, that was sent down so that people could have this renewed relationship with him, that he was given as a sacrifice for people's sins.

And it is this belief that God became flesh, in the form of Jesus, which is called the incarnation.

And so the word incarnation literally means to take on flesh, that word carn in it, you see it in chilli carn Connie as well, it means sort of meat or flesh.

So it's literally in flesh becoming.

So Christians believe that the son that gave up, the glory of heaven to come to earth, to take on the punishment that humans deserved for sin.

And notice I said the son and I said, God became flesh because of this belief in the Trinity.

So Christians believe that Jesus didn't start to begin.

yeah, he didn't begin at his birth, but he was incarnated at his birth.

Christians believe that Jesus is a eternal, so he's always existed, but just became a human, at the incarnation.

That's something to get your heads around.

We're going to pause for a moment, and you guys are going to answer some questions, and then I'm going to tell you a little bit more, about the story of the incarnation.

Okay, first thing we have for you, is another key word, the annunciation.

So the word annunciation is a bit like the word announced, so something is being announced in this picture.

Can you think what it might be? So this lady in blue is traditionally, how the Virgin Mary is portrayed, and we've got the angel Gabriel here.

And this word, the annunciation links to the top part, of the story where Gabriel announced to Mary, that she was going to become pregnant and have a baby.

Now, Mary, at this point is she's young, she's unmarried, she's a virgin.

And so she understandably says, "How is this going to happen for, I am unmarried and I'm virgin?" And Gabriel tells her that the spirit of the Lord, will come upon her and that she will become pregnant.

Her fiance, Joseph, when he finds out, that she is pregnant plans to divorce her quietly.

But then he has a dream in which God tells him, that he should marry her because she has been made pregnant, by the power of the Holy spirit, and therefore he should take her as his wife.

So here we have a key Christian belief that Jesus' birth, is a miracle because Mary was a virgin.

And this links to a prophecy in the Old Testament, which says, therefore, the Lord himself, will give you a sign.

The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and we'll call him Emmanuel.

You might have heard that phrase, around Christmas some times.

Now, this is a prophecy from a Jewish prophet called Isaiah, who lived a long time before Jesus was born.

That a virgin will become pregnant, and that his son will be called Emmanuel.

Now the name Emmanuel means God with us, and Christians believe that Jesus was God with us on earth, and that the miraculous nature of his birth, is a fulfilment of this prophecy.

So next part of the story, a census is declared, and Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, where the time comes for Mary to have the baby.

And we can see here in this nativity scene, that Mary and Joseph are in a stable because there's no room in Bethlehem where they go and find a place to stay.

It links to the belief that Jesus chose a humble birth.

Christians would say that God, could have chosen to be born anywhere, it could have been in a palace, it could have been in the most, expensive private hospital in the world.

But instead he chooses to be born to quite poor couple, who are young and in a stable, 'cause they've got nowhere else to stay.

So that links to an important belief that Jesus is humble.

And next, as Jesus is born, the story goes on to say, that a host of angels appears to shepherds, who are watching their flocks by night.

And this is a really significant part of the story, because shepherds were the lowest of the low in society.

They were people who weren't particularly skilled, all they could do was watch sheep really, they were smelly, they were poor, they were judged by the society in which they lived.

But God chooses to tell them these shepherds, the lowest of the low that the King, the Messiah, has been born.

So again, we see this narrative in Christianity, of poor people being raised up by God.

Later on in the story, we have wise men from the East, called magi, follow a star, which rests over the house, in which Mary and Joseph and Jesus are living.

Now, this probably happens a bit later on, about a year or so after birth although in nativity stories, it normally happens straight away, doesn't it? And also, although traditionally, people tend to think, there being three wise men, it doesn't say in the Bible, how many men there were, just said wise men, from the East.

Germany people tend to think of there being three wise men, because of the three gifts that are brought, gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Now these are very strange gifts to give to a new born baby, but they have a deep significance.

So gold would be what was traditionally given to a King, and it represents the belief that Jesus, was the promised King whose kingdom would never end.

Frankincense is a type of incense that was used in worship, and when it's set on fire, it smokes a lot in it.

It sends out this beautiful smell, and the smoke that rises up, represented the prayers going up to heaven up to God.

And so the frankincense represents the idea, that Jesus was God, and that he should be worshipped.

And finally Jesus was given myrrh, now myrrh is possibly the most strange gift, because it was a perfume that was used, to embalm the dead bodies.

Not really what you'd want to receive, if you just had a baby.

But again, this myrrh has a deep symbolism, in the Christian story because it shows the idea, that Jesus came to die.

So I'm going to go through some quick fire questions, and then we're going to answer some questions, on the worksheet and look at some influences.

So hopefully we've added a bit to your knowledge, of the story of the nativity.

Never assume you know it all, because there's always more to learn.

There's more for me to learn as well.

So firstly, let me move myself a little bit here.

What was miraculous about Jesus's birth in the gospel story? There's two answers you want select here, so it should be nice and straightforward.

So Mary was a virgin and it was predicted by a prophet.

Next question, what was the name of the event, in which the angel Gabriel told Mary, she would become pregnant? The annunciation.

Where was Jesus born? Bethlehem.

Who did a host of angels announce the news to? Shepherds.

Which word means to take on flesh, and shows the Christian belief, that Jesus is God in human form? The Incarnation.

True or false.

Christians traditionally believe that the son, came into existence in the nativity story, or at the point of the story.

False, so remember Christians believe that Jesus, is a member of the Trinity, that he is fully God, and therefore eternal.

They believe that his birth in the nativity story, is when he was incarnated.

So when he took on human flesh became human, but they believe that he existed before that as well.

So what do you need to see now is pause the video, and there is a main task on the worksheet.

There's some reading for you to do, and some questions to answer based on the reading.

Once you've answered your questions, and please answer them in full sentences and try your best, try and get lots of evidence from what you've read.

Come back to the video and play it again for some feedback.

Well done for answering those questions, and again, I hope you added to your answers, based on the feedback that I gave you.

So got a couple more things to look at, firstly influences.

So sometimes in an assessment, you're going to get asked the question, how does a belief influence Christians today? Now, if something is an influence, it means it's going to, affect how someone behaves.

You might have been told that a friend, was a good or a bad influence on your behaviour.

And what that means is that your behaviour has changed, because of that person.

Another example I often give is if I genuinely believe, that aliens can read my mind, then I will be influenced, to wear a tinfoil hat, to block their mind rays, and their mind reading abilities, okay? So if you have a genuine belief, it's going to influence you in some way, you're going to do things, because of that belief.

So if Christians believe in the incarnation, they believe that God acted in history, that he became human in the form of Jesus.

How are they going to behave differently, because of that belief? So I've got one example for you here, so Christians will worship Jesus, as they believe he is God incarnate.

So Christians will partake in an acts of worship, maybe they'll pray to Jesus, they'll sing worship songs about Jesus, they'll read the Bible and read stories about Jesus.

I've already given you a few ideas, what I'm going to get you to do is pause the video.

And I want you to see if you can mind map as many ideas, as possible as to how Christians might be influenced today, by the belief in the incarnation as our first step, to answering the question I'm about to give you.

Okay, so I hope you got an okay with that.

Now I've got a few examples here in case you've struggled, to get some more of own.

You might have extra ones, that's fine.

If you didn't get this many, don't worry, okay? This is the first time we're doing this, so it'll just take us a bit of time to get used to it.

But what I will ask is for you to add some of the ideas, I've got on the screen to your own, cause that will help you with the next step whilst you're doing that.

Well, you should pause to do that, but I am going to talk through these.

So I've already mentioned that Christians, might read the Bible to read about the stories of Jesus, so that they could know how he lived and how he acted.

Because if they believe that he is God, then they're going to believe they can learn from his life.

They will celebrate Christmas because of the belief, in Jesus's birth, not just to get presents, they will follow Jesus' teaching.

So they'll believe that Jesus's teachings, will have authority because they believe he he is God.

They will have nativity plays, you may have been, in a nativity play at some point in your life.

They will give gifts at Christmas because of the belief, that God gave sort of the ultimate gift of his son.

And therefore Christians will give gifts to each other, as well as a reflection of that generosity.

So pause now, so you can have a moment to add it, to your own mind map and we'll get onto the next thing.

So the question I've got here is, explain two ways, in which the belief in the incarnation, influences Christians today.

A few points, explaining questions, will be slightly different, for each exam board.

So you need to ask your teacher, which exam board you're sitting so that you know, exactly how to approach these questions.

I'm going to go for a fairly broad approach, to make sure this is going to be as useful, for everyone as possible.

But this question above does fit best with the example, was AQA and Edexcel.

You might be expected to write a longer answers, for explain questions for Edugas and WJEC.

And the question style, might look slightly different for OCR.

Either way the content of what you need to know, is going to stay the same.

So this is still a really useful task, so that you can practise writing about, what you've learned in this lesson.

Now I'm going to get you to pause, see if you can answer that question, and use your mind map to help you.

Okay I hope you've gotten down that feedback.

Now, just something to be aware of, my answers are not the only answers that would get marked.

Just think whether you've written about, something specific from the story.

So we want to avoid being vague, we want to have specific Christian beliefs in there.

And as you can see in my answers, I showed you a key way, you could have the point and explain.

That was just to show you how you're developing your answers as you go through.

So hope that's been helpful for you, the next lesson in this series is going to be, looking at Jesus' life and teaching.

So hopefully you're going to join us for that until then, do your practise writing about your re-practice, those key words to make sure you remember them.

They won't just stick in your head automatically, they need to be practised, so that you remember them.

But thank you very much for all of your hard work, in this lesson.

And now you can go on and do the exit quiz.