A Strange Way to Save the World

Lately Bekkah and I have been talking with Aubreigh about the concept of traditions. With Thanksgiving just behind us and now Christmas coming up there are a lot of causes for traditions to come out and be talked about. A tradition that most people celebrate with Thanksgiving is having a Turkey at the dinner table and for some people, whether you are a big football fan or not you watch the football games on TV. Our family does the Turkey and we also watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as we are eating breakfast and cooking.

One of our Advent/Christmas traditions is to ditch all the Fall and Thanksgiving decorations the day after Thanksgiving and to pull out all the Christmas decorations and bring out the tree. While we run around the house putting up decorations and setting up and hanging the ornaments on the tree we listen to Christmas music all day long. Since Aubreigh has gotten older there has been a greater variety of music with Mickey and the gang singing Christmas Carols like ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas;’ alongside some of our favorite artists singing songs like ‘Mary Did You Know’ and the one that has been stuck in my head all week long which is, ‘A Strange Way to Save the World’.

How many of you are familiar with that song? Well lets take a listen so we’re all on the same page.

The song focuses on Joseph’s thoughts around the birth of Jesus, much like the song ‘Mary Did You Know’ focuses on, well, Mary’s perspective. Both songs are amazing and tell the birth story from the perspective of Jesus’ earthly parents Mary and Joseph. I highly encourage you to listen to them if you haven’t heard them already.

Isn’t the artist right though? Isn’t sending Jesus to be born as a person a strange way to save the world? As we journey through this season of Advent we wait in hope and expectation of our God coming in the form of a simple infant. In fact if you take a look at our text today you will see that the very beginning of it says that the Word became flesh and lived among us, . The word for flesh appears often in the Bible as you might imagine and about a third of the time that it is used it talks about the flesh in terms of sinful humanity or humankind. As we know. from the beginning of the Bible we were born in sin and because of that we are bound to live a sinful life and we do our best to avoid that part of us. So why is it that when we hear the word flesh and humans we are often reminded of that sinfulness of us and here in John’s opening of the gospel John almost boasts that the Word became flesh and lived among us?

Plus if you listen to the theology of Paul he very much accuses the flesh of being sinful and incapable of being saved and that it is faith in Jesus and God that will save us from that human fleshy sinful nature that is inside of us. In fact in Paul has a very lengthy discussion about this very topic. Here is just a portion of what he says: 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Also, if you listen to the word ‘flesh’ in Greek it even sounds like a word that you might punish your child for saying by putting soap in their mouth. The word for flesh in Greek is sarx. It doesn’t sound like a nice word and for many Israelites the word had very many negative connotations to it like the sea was for them as well.

So, again, why does the gospel writer John mention the idea that Jesus was the Word and the word became flesh? Isn’t it strange enough that God went to the world to live among them, did John have to emphasize the idea of being born and being flesh just like all other humans? If he is sarx, flesh, does it really add up that he would be full of grace and truth? As people read or heard this they wouldn’t have associated the idea of flesh with grace and truth and glory.

This is why I have had that song stuck in my head all week; a strange way to save the world. Jesus is not only born in the sarx but he is also born in a stable with animals, in a small town called Bethlehem. The song suggests that had Jesus come as he deserved he wouldn’t have come into the world this way. He also came into a world of political unrest and a world where he was at the heart of some of that unrest and the ruler who didn’t even know this baby wanted him dead. What a strange way to save the world.

And yet we are told that this child, this Word made flesh came into this world and not only will he overcome his own sarx but he will also overcome the sarx of all people and he will pour out grace upon grace to the world. The whole idea of sin and shame had been in the world for generations and the law had ruled over them our text says, but Jesus was sent to bring grace and truth and it was God who sent Jesus Christ into our world so that we all may know that desire of God is for us to have those precious gifts.

This is what it means to live in the season of Advent. We anxiously await the coming of this Word made flesh. We await the coming of the person who overcame his fleshy nature and who will bring to us a message of grace and truth. A message that overcomes our fleshly sinful nature. I am still baffled at the choice God made to send his one and only son to live in this world with us only to let him die by human, fleshy, hands, and yet through it all managed to save us from that very sinful nature by becoming flesh among us. What a strange way to save the world. So strange in fact, that God’s plan works and we have received grace upon grace and we have seen the truth of God’s love. As much as I study and teach the Bible I don’t know that I will ever fully understand the depth and breadth of God’s understanding of bringing us into relationship with God, because it is a different way of showing love than we might think to show it to others. So I have to say it one more time, what a strange way to save the world, but thank God for the lengths that God goes to save us from ourselves. Thank God for this season of Advent when we get to spend this month to appreciate God’s ultimate plan for this world, even if we don’t fully understand it we know that it all centers around the grace of God and God’s love for all humanity. What a blessing to see God’s love unfolding in this way and to experience it each year.

Amen.