The Word Became Flesh

The beginning of John’s Gospel is a hymn that tells the story of Jesus from a cosmic standpoint, placing the story of Jesus not just into human history, but into the cosmological fabric of the universe.  John the moves from the metaphor of Christ as the divine Word into the word becoming flesh, or the very God of the universe coming into human form.  These images are soaring, but they are also startling.  The creator of the universe taking on human form is an amazing claim: “And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.”

Will you please join me in prayer?  “On this joyous Christmas morn, come unto us and be our Word, our very creator, dear God.  Teach us your grace and truth, born this Christmas morn.  Amen.”

While these opening words from the Gospel of John are familiar, let us linger over them a moment and ponder what they might mean for us as Christians.  Certainly we immediately understand the message here is mysterious and glorious.  Our passage also holds a possibility of conflict and rejection, spoken of as darkness, the possibility of not recognizing the word made flesh.  But the idea that captures me most in this passage is the idea of the incarnation—the very creator of the universe taking on the flesh of humanity.

The Gospel of Mark, written in about 60, or thirty years after Christ’s death, says that Jesus was filled with God’s spirit at the Transfiguration in the middle of Jesus’ ministry.  Matthew and Luke, both written 20 years later around 80, say that Jesus was filled with the Spirit at his Baptism, early in his ministry.  But John, written forty-five years later in about 125, says that Jesus and God existed from the beginning, an obvious reference to the creation story in Genesis.  So, as the stories of Jesus matured in time, the association of the Spirit and divinity with Jesus moved earlier and earlier in time.  Finally, in John, Jesus was with God from the very beginning.  In fact, John does not even then talk about Jesus’ human birth, but moves directly into telling the story of Jesus’ ministry.  It is an irony that our Gospel lesson on Christmas Day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus as a human being is a passage that refers to the eternal existence of Christ beyond time.  So, on the one hand, we are celebrating the physical birth of a baby child in wonder and sweetness.  And on the other hand, John’s Gospel asks us to consider Jesus not as a child, but as a cosmological expression of the eternal creator of the universe.

I think we all relate well to the traditional stories of Jesus as an infant child.  The images and stories of Jesus’ birth help us relate to a small poor child born in a manger, born into poverty and homelessness in ancient Palestineduring Roman occupation.  These images are familiar, and we can associate them to events in our lives and life experience.  I am not so sure we relate well to John’s story about Jesus being the logos, the Word, or Christ-presence becoming flesh to live among us.  Why would the creator of the universe come to live among us?  Why would divinity take on human form?  Well, God loves us.  It remains a mystery why the eternal God wants to walk with us on our journey, but God’s love and grace and promise means that God-is-with-us.  What amazing grace.

Of course all of the Gospel writers are challenged to tell stories about things that are beyond words.  God, who is so far beyond our ability to understand or perceive, can only be understood in allusion or metaphor.  And John’s metaphor here is that divinity, as the eternal word, becomes flesh in the person of Jesus.  Incarnated divinity dwells on earth, born a babe, but divine.  This is John’s Christmas story.  God came down to us, and through Jesus, continues to come to us even today.  Jesus, as the word, is always being re-born into our lives, our hearts, and our spirits.  Some of the same cosmic spark that flashed in Jesus also flashes in us as the church.  Christmas is always available to us as members of Christ’s body, or the church on earth.  The word became flesh in Christ, and through our relationship with Christ, the Word becomes flesh in us. 

So for John, the Word becoming flesh in Jesus heralds the birthing of Christ in us.  John’s Christ is metaphorically the true vine, and we are the growth on the vine that produces fruit.  And this metaphor of production is continued later in John when we learn that parts of the vine that produce fruit are nourished, and parts of the vine that do not produce fruit are pruned.  This teaching is introduced in our passage today as the tension between darkness and light.  The true word, the logos, is the light that lights the world.  And remember the verse carefully that says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  The darkness does not go away—it remains, and those who ignore or turn away from the light enter the darkness. 

Now, again, these are all metaphors that John uses to weave a tale to teach us about the Kingdomof God.  John teaches the universe is lightness or darkness, yes or no: no gray in between.  And John associated goodness and truth with the spirit, and darkness and troubles with the body, a very Aristotelian position that was becoming popular in early Christianity.  John taught either you hear and believe the word, becoming more spiritual, or you reject the spiritual realm, and become more base and associated with the body.  As a result, John does not talk about Jesus’ birth at all—he moves right into Jesus’ ministry where Jesus is completely focused on spiritual things and is already choosing disciples before the first chapter closes. No nostalgia, no Christmas carols, not an angel in sight, no worries about Harod searching for the baby, and no manger.

So let’s back up a bit and ask, “What does all this have to do with Christmas and Jesus’ birth today?”  Christmas is about home, family, love, great cookies, fun gatherings, carols, and the birth of Jesus into the world.  But John talks about Jesus in cosmological terms—the big “Why?” of Christmas.  As a result, John does not even acknowledge the Christ child was born on Christmas day.  But John says that the Word, the very creator of the universe, became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.  It is almost as if Luke and Matthew tell stories of Jesus’ physical birth to make it completely and fully human, and then John refers to Jesus as completely divine, completely God-with-us.

For me, the real Christmas is right smack in the middle of all these stories together.  It is both-and, not either-or.  Jesus was born in a manger, and Jesus was also the incarnated divine spark brought down to be flesh among us.  The mystery of Christmas is the both-and story: Jesus is both fully human and also the spark of the divine.

But for me, the story goes even deeper.  As members of Christ’s church, we share in Christ’s divine spark.  We, as the Body of Christ, are also the eternal Word made flesh.  We are also born this day as the body of Christ.  The baby Jesus is both a babe in the manger and the Word of creation that has existed since eternity past.  Both-and.  And so are we.  This is the glory of having four Gospels, four different stories from four different perspectives telling Jesus’ story for four very different audiences in the ancient world.  And the stories are not mutually exclusive, but all facets of a larger gleaming diamond of God’s love for us.

So the very creator of the universe became flesh and dwelled among us.  This is what our passage in Isaiah foretold today.   And then, we also tell the story that Jesus was born as a babe on Christmas Day.  Both stories are true.  The small baby wrapped in cloth, and the creator of the universe, both laying in the manger, together in one tiny baby, together as us in the church in the body of Christ.  Momentous.  Majestic.  Mystery.  Both stories are soaring metaphor, and each is impossibly true.  And Merry Christmas to you.

Isa 52:7-10

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.