The Word Became Flesh

Introduction: A Light Shines in the Darkness

Opening Illustration: I can remember very clearly the first time I thought seriously about death. Strangely enough it was at my grandmother’s house, when I was there for a sleepover. I was the only one of my siblings who was there, and I remember very clearly the guest bedroom, which also doubled as storage space for Nan, where I was laying in the deep darkness of night wondering what it would be like to die. Trying to imagine not existing. Thinking about the fact that before I was born I did not exist. Those deep existential thoughts that haunt us from time to time. The ones we try to drown out with movies, music, time with friends and family and regrettably sometimes with doom scrolling.

Yet when we are silently awake with nothing but our own thoughts sometimes they go to this dark place. Let’s go to that dark place for a minute this morning. Because the world is a dark place, isn’t it? With the advent of the internet and social media we’re more aware of that than ever, aren’t we? Sometimes it’s tempting to think that times are worse than ever, that people are worse than ever, but I suspect that isn’t true. It think now we just see more than we did before. Things that if they happened before the internet you would never have heard about are all over the place for you to see. People are dying all around the world, many of them violently. Violent people take advantage of the weak. People are still enslaved and made to do unspeakable things.

So we distract ourselves. That’s probably the most common reaction. Because if all there is to life is one day being born and one day dying, than what else is the reasonable response? Believe it or not the Bible actually says this. In Ecclesiastes 1:1-8

Ecclesiastes 1:1–8 CSB

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Absolute futility,” says the Teacher. “Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets; panting, it hurries back to the place where it rises. Gusting to the south, turning to the north, turning, turning, goes the wind, and the wind returns in its cycles. All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are wearisome, more than anyone can say. The eye is not satisfied by seeing or the ear filled with hearing.

The world is overshadowed by death, in a way that makes everything we do until then meaningless. Even if you dedicated your life to leaving a legacy, having children, changing the world for the better, ensuring your name is remembered, scientists have eliminated the lasting meaning in that by showing the continued decay of the universe that shows that one day the entire universe as we know it will disolve into nothing and no one will be remembered because there will be no one left to remember.

Dark, right? This is why we have those sleepless nights. Because we are lost in the darkness. What do you do when you are lost in the darkness? You look for a source of light.

This is where John comes in. John has seen the light that we all need in this darkness. He was there to witness it and wants to share it with all of us. So he wrote it down, and we today call it the apostle according to John. So what does he have to tell us about hope in this dark world? Life in a world overshadowed by death? John brings us all the way back to the beginning,

John 1:1a (CSB)

In the beginning...

Let’s pause here for a second. John doesn’t bring us back to a beginning. He brings us back to the beginning. As a Jewish man raised on the Hebrew Scriptures, he would have known extremely well the books we call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In fact Jewish boys were expected to memorize those five books of scripture as children. So he must intentionally be reminding his readers of the first words of Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 CSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

That’s the beginning he means. So he has something to add to the story of God creating the world. What does he have to add?

John 1:1–3 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

So God was not “alone” at the beginning of all things. So who is this mysterious word? For those of you who know, try to imagine for a minute that you don’t know where John is going with all of this. Someone has brought you this book and handed it to you could and this is your first impression. It would have been a poem in Greek by the way, the language this book was originally written in. And in that language the word we translate as, well, “word” has a broader range of meaning than the english. It doesn’t mean just word, but thought, speech, statement. John is personifying this “Word,” and giving Him a place is the creation story. Not just any place mind you. This Word was not only in the beginning with God, but was Himself God.

This is a bit of a mind blowing moment here. Remember that the Hebrew Scriptures very strongly assert that there is only one God. VERY strongly. And John is a Hebrew man. He presents us with a brain buster here, where somehow there is an entity that both is God and is with God. Two persons but one God. Later the idea of the Holy Spirit will complete this trinitarian idea, but for now John breaks it to us gently. So who is this Word that is with God and is God? Well let’s take a peak back at Genesis again, this time at Genesis 1:3

Genesis 1:3 CSB

Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Probably a familiar little verse of scripture. God simply says let there be light and light appears. So if you asked what God used to create light, what’s the answer? He used His words. His speech. The Word that was with God in the beginning is the words He used to create the entire universe. This is further backed up by the verses in John that we just looked at affirming that all things were made through this word and without Him nothing was made. Yet not only is this word the means by which God created the universe and in the above verse created light, but He is Himself that light and the life of all people, as we see in the next few verses.

John 1:4–5 CSB

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

If we stopped there we would already have hope in our dark world. If there really is a God who through His word created and enlightened the world than we can now know that life isn’t actually meaningless. If we were created and given life by the Word of God, than we must have some greater purpose than a hyphen on our gravestones. Yet we are still left wondering what that purpose is. And perhaps the greater trouble is wondering why this world is so dark. If the God who is light created the universe we live in and gave us life, why is there so much hurt, pain and downright evil in this world that we live in? Why isn’t that light, you know, lighting things up a little big more? John continues in John 1:6

John 1:6 CSB

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

Not our author, another John who is better known as John the Baptist, because he baptized a whole bunch of people.

John 1:7–11 CSB

He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

There’s the problem. That’s why the world is as dark as it is. The light has been shining in the darkness and trying to give light to all of us, but we keep rejecting the light. For the most part John the apostle is giving us here a preview of what was about to happen to the Word, but it’s also a summary of all of human history. We read in Genesis 3 about Adam and Eve in the garden rejecting God and trying to become like God themselves by eating the forbidden fruit, the first rejection of God by mankind that started a whole series of other rejections.

The last couple of verses in this section are tragic when you take the time to reflect on them. The light of the world, who created the world, came down into His world, and among His chosen people Israel. Instead of opening their arms and embracing the God who made them instead they didn’t even recognize Him. His own special Chosen people who had been predicting His coming for hundreds of years refused to receive Him.

But not everyone rejected the light. John 1:12-13

John 1:12–13 CSB

But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

So in this dark world, that remains dark because of the rejection of the light, it is possible for those who will receive the Word to be able to become Children of God. Children of the being who created the entire universe. To be a child of a King is one thing, but what about the King of the Universe. What does mean to be someone’s child? What do our children get from us? If they’re ours by birth they resemble us, they certainly over time begin to act like us, for better or worse, and they receive an inheritance from us. It’s the same way with God. We become like Him, meaning we become good and loving and so on. And we receive everything that belongs to Him some day. But we still have so much more questions. We still don’t know who this word is, or how He makes us able to become children of God, or what John exactly means by saying we can become children of God.

There’s still a lot of book left to explain these things, but let’s take a look at some more verses from this first chapter for this morning. Who is this Word that was with God and is God? John 1:14

John 1:14 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Wait a minute John. Are you saying God Himself became flesh and lived on the earth? Now to those of us in the western world, so shaped and formed by Christianity, it’s pretty normal an idea. But this is pretty insane sounding stuff to people in John’s time, especially to the Jewish people around Him. The most Holy God, Holy meaning perfect, sinless, set apart from the ordinary, came to earth? John clearly wants to emphasize this point, because he doesn’t say that the word became human. There’s a perfectly good Greek word he could have used if that’s what he meant. Similarly he could have used the more neutral term ‘body’ and said something like “the Word became embodied.” Nope. John goes straight for the word ‘flesh.’ The word that in a technical sense just literally means physical body but whose connotation brings to mind flaws, limitations, earthliness, maybe even crass-ness. I’m trademarking that word, by the way. The Bible uses this word flesh when it wants to talk about the flaws of humanity. That’s what the word became.

What does that say about His mission? That He became just as flawed and fleshly as the rest of us? Now of course in case you’re worried yes the Bible says He never sinned, but He did take on all the weaknesses and temptations that come with being truly human. He must love us so much to do that on purpose. When He could have stayed in heaven in perfection forever and never have to feel the frailty, pain and suffering of humanity.

But He was not left without glory. Only now His glory shines through in what He says and what He does, in the fact that He proves Himself to be the Son of God by being full of grace and full of truth. This pairing of characteristics is so perfect, because either one without the other is unbalanced. But together you have the grace to offer forgiveness and redemption in all and the truth to expose people’s sinfulness and call them to repentance.

John continues in John 1:15-17

John 1:15–17 CSB

(John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John takes a moment to clarify how John the Baptist testified about the Word, previewing what he’ll tell us about John later in this chapter, before returning to the subject of the grace of the Word and finally revealing who the Word is: Jesus Christ. I’m sure most of you saw this coming of course. The human being that the Word became is none other than Jesus of Nazereth, son of Mary. Christ by the way is not His last name, although it came to be used that way by even the New Testament writers after a while. It’s His title. It means “anointed” or “chosen,” and is the favorite Greek translation for the Hebrew title “Messiah” which also means “anointed” or “chosen.”

You see the Hebrew peoples were living in dark times. They had been given a perfect law by God and told that they would receive blessing if they kept His law and curses if they rejected it. And in classic human fashion they rejected the light that God had given them, so after many chances given God sent them into exile and allowed them to be ruled by other nations. At the time that John is writing about the Jewish people were still under the thumb of the Roman government. Yet they had hope that God hadn’t forgotten them. He promised through His messangers, called prophets, that He would send a special anointed or chosen one to save the people and give them a lasting Kingdom. They called Him the Messiah.

So John in just a few words tells us that this person named Jesus is literally God in the flesh and also the Messiah of Israel sent to save and free their people, though perhaps not in the way they expected to be saved. More on that later. So if you’re keeping track with me that means that this light that is shining in the darkness, this hope in a world overshadowed by death that John is showing us is none other than Jesus Himself.

John the apostle tells us that he has received from Jesus “grace upon grace.” How many of you have seen “the Santa Clause” starring Tim Allen? I picture it sort of like the magical bag that Santa has in those movies, where Jesus reaches in and pulls out more and more grace from a never ending source. Abundant free gifts of salvation to any who will believe in Him.

The only reason He has such abundant grace to give is because of who He is. He is God, yet He is also the Son of God. John concludes his introduction with John 1:18

John 1:18 CSB

No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.

You know how earlier in this sermon I talked about how cool it is that John calls Jesus the Word and says that God created everything through Him, and that if you go back to Genesis God creates the world using nothing but words. Well I think there’s another really important sense in which Jesus is the “Word.” Let me ask you a question, how do you know who another person really is? How do you share who you are with other people? Through words. We are wisely taught all our lives not to judge people based on appearances. The true you is so much bigger than that. Although you can use your appearance to send certain messages about yourself the only way to really express your inner self to others who don’t have access to your mind is by words.

The same is true of God. In the Old Testament we read that God is so amazingly glorious that any mere human who truly looked at His glory would die, so seeing God with our eyes wasn’t really a way to know God. So God made Himself known how? By His word. He spoke to people and they knew Him. So when John says here that no one has ever seen God but Jesus has revealed Him, this is what He means. Not only that Jesus earthly life and ministry show who God is, but that every time God has revealed Himself to mankind it has been Jesus. All along, everything that we know about God is through Jesus. That means that the entire Hebrew Scriptures is Jesus revealed to us before He was even born. Jesus is the Word, Wisdom and Torah of God who has been since the beginning and will be forever.

So let’s stop there for a second and ask ourselves, “how does this answer the darkness we’re living in?” What does this brief poetic introduction to the Gospel According to John give us hope on those sleepless nights facing the futility and mortality of the human race and the question of our own certain death? We’ve been touching on these things all along, but let’s focus in on the implications of this passage for us and the actions that they should inspire. Because this isn’t just “neat information.” This is truth that requires a response. So what is that response?

Well first, the fact that God created the world with intentionality and did so through Jesus Christ means that the world is not meaningless as it might seem to be. If there is a God and He chose to create us it must be for a reason. And if He created us using His Son who would one day redeem us He must have had this planned all along. We are not randomly generated flesh robots doomed to death but creations of God’s own hand constantly sustained by God’s Spirit. This is the heart of Psalm 139:13-16

Psalm 139:13–16 CSB

For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.

The fact that God is responsible for our creation and our maintained existance already grants it so much more meaning. Even if we disappeared after we die, which I don’t believe, we would have been created by and remembered by God Himself. Isn’t that alone worth so much?

Secondly, if Jesus is the light of the world that cannot be overcome by darkness, than we can be certain that it’s possible for us to see through this darkness. It’s like the sun, s-u-n, which gives us light so that we can see everything around us. The Bible says in Psalm 119:105

Psalm 119:105 CSB

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.

If what John says in this passage is true than Jesus helps us to see life the way that it truly is. And John hints even here that the light of Jesus is what leads to life. We have to hold on for a little while through the book to learn that the life Jesus brings isn’t like our life now that will end in death, but eternal life.

Which brings me to the third and most transformative of the implications that this passage has for what we should know and how we should live differently because of it. This passage teaches us that through Jesus we can receive grace and truth and become children of God. Now this passage doesn’t share with us the details on exactly how Jesus accomplishes this for us, but we can jump ahead a little bit, can’t we? You might be familiar with another very famous passage from the gospel according to John, John 3:16-17

John 3:16–17 CSB

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John has said similarly in our main passage that those who believe in Him will become children of God, but here Jesus is talking about eternal life that we receive by believing in Him. So if you believe in Jesus you gain eternal life as children of God.

Now the word believing here could be easily misunderstood. For most of us I think it’s natural to hear the word “believe” and think of something very dry and intellectual. As if what God is calling us to do is to hear the truth and agree that it’s true. But the word translated as believe here means more than that. In the biblical sense it’s not just knowing something is true, it’s active trust put in another person. In this case the person being God. So just believing in God isn’t enough, we have to put active trust in Him. What does trusting God look like? Well if we trust God than we will listen to what He tells us to do. This is why the call of Jesus was a call to repentance, which is a fancy word for turning away from our own ways and following after God.

So maybe you’re here this morning and you’ve already put your trust in Jesus and you’re trying your best to listen to and obey Him. I hope that this look into John’s introduction to His gospel has given you a fresh appreciation for all that Jesus has done for us. It should also remind us of the core of who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him, not only so that we can be reminded of its meaning for us, but also so that we can understand it well enough to share it freely with others.

But maybe you’re here this morning and you haven’t put your trust in Jesus. Maybe you’re living in this dark world and fighting against despair. Maybe the shadow of death has been keeping you awake at night and you need the light of Jesus to show you the way to life. If that’s you this morning than I encourage you to put your faith and trust in Jesus even right now. He really is who He says He is, and He not only lovingly created you personally, but wants desperately for you to receive life through Him. So turn away from trying to live by your own flawed and sinful way and turn to Him. Then I would challenge you to demonstrate this new trust in Jesus by being baptized, dipped in water by a fellow believer demonstrating your willingness to be made clean by God, and to let your old life die so that you can be born as a brand new child of God.