The Word Became Flesh

Introduction

The Gospel of John is easily my favorite book of the Bible. The narratives and theology in a Gospel written, as St. John says, “that all may believe,” is unmatched. So, it is particularly appropriate that today’s lectionary, my first with you formally, would be from John’s Gospel. It is even more appropriate as we begin a new year that we begin with the very beginning of John’s Gospel, a few verses called the Prologue. Indeed the words of the Prologue are so profound that the entirety of the Gospel can be summed up in these few verses. As we begin this year anew, let us turn to these words and the road map that they give to us into seeing Jesus for who He really is.

Sermon

In the beginning...

John starts by taking us to words that will sound familiar to most of us. As you grab your Bible from your shelf or your bedside and open to the first pages, to the book of Genesis, a book that begins by telling the story of God setting out to create everything that exists, the Bible begins with these simple words: “In the beginning.” John begins his Gospel in this way to point us not just back to the story of creation, but to the story of pre-creation.

We tend to get caught up, especially in this Christmas season, in believing that the story of Jesus begins with Mary and Joseph and a child in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. John reminds us that the story of Jesus pre-dates that… by a lot. “In the beginning was the Word.” John will use this term Word to refer to Jesus and he will tell us that the Word was not only with God at the beginning, but that the Word — that this Jesus — is Himself also God.

This means that before there was any creation, before there was heaven and earth and skies and seas and plants and trees, before there was light and life, before anything, there was God. There stood at the beginning the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — eternal from before everything. And this Word is called the logos, the mind of God, the intelligence of God, the creative nature of God. Jesus is more than just the long-haired gentle dude in our Sunday School paintings. He is the one who created all things and through whom every single thing has life. There is not only gentleness, but power and compassion and creativity and love poured out from that source of creation in Jesus Christ.

And the Word became flesh...

And it that brilliant mind that set all of creation into motion that becomes a human being. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And it’s not just that Jesus gets flesh and bones, but that the wholeness of God becomes one of us.

Christianity proclaims a God who did not sit around in the safety of heaven to observe quietly everything going on in the world. Indeed, one of the lessons we learn early as the church is that sitting in our little church bubble isolates us (safely, to be fair) from the sufferings and the realities of the harshness of the darkness of this world — the darkness that the light of God in Jesus Christ comes to break into. And so God does not just know about our sufferings and the toughness of being a human being in a world of pain and darkness, but comes to live that life among us. In no other major religion does God even dare to become human and to live in the harsh gutters of human existence. Even in the old Greek stories of yore, the gods only pretended to be human beings. Jesus is the real deal.

As one of my colleagues puts it, “This means that God became Jesus who is a little baby, wet his diapers, messed his pants, burped, upchucked, cried and whined at the synagogue at the age of two, and later drove his parents crazy during the worship service.”

God, in Jesus, comes to live a human life, and this is central to our understanding of Jesus. We can have the kind and compassionate Jesus in our Sunday School paintings because God is not far off. He chose to dwell among us in human form and then on Pentecost later this year we will hear about God’s continual presence in the form of the Holy Spirit upon us. The understanding of Jesus becoming one of us is so important that Luther himself said: “If you truly believe that the Word became flesh, that the logic of the universe became a human being, that is powerful enough to drive demons and devils away from you.”

Consider it. If God goes through the hassle to come down to live the sufferings of a human being and knows that at the end of it all is a gruesome death on a cross. Who would do that? Who would leave the comfort of heaven to suffer and die for people who will continually sin against them? You’d have to really, REALLY care about these people to do something like that for them. And here is Jesus. God’s favor comes upon us, a favor that is proclaimed by the angels at Christmas, “Glory to God in the highest and peace upon those whom God favors.” That’s me and you. God takes on our lot and knows what we feel.

And “tabernacled” among us...

And John tells us that Jesus dwells among us. And for the word dwell, he uses a familiar Old Testament word: tabernacle. God tabernacled among us.

If you recall the story of Moses, you may remember the tabernacle — the big tent that was supposed to house the presence of God. It was a sanctuary. But in that tabernacle, at the very end of it, was a space called the Holy of Holies. It was separated by a curtain and inside was the Ark of the Covenant, a special box that housed the Ten Commandments. In this place was where the sacred lived. This was God’s dwelling place. And John now tells us that God no longer dwells within the tabernacle. He is no longer bound to the High Priest and the prophets, but that He chooses to dwell with the totality of humanity. Not the rich. Not the special. Not the chosen. Everyone.

Full of Grace and Truth

And what does this God among us bring? Does God come to finally whip everyone into shape and bring eternal punishment on the enemies of God, which humanity rightly deserves? No, St. John tells us that Jesus is full of grace and truth.

God’s grace comes to us as gift. You don’t earn it. You don’t work for it. You don’t deserve it. You don’t get it because you lie and say you’re a good person. In this Christmas season, we focus on the giving and receiving of gifts and here we hear from John about the gift of God’s grace come to us. God doesn’t make us earn God’s love. Through Jesus, God’s love and grace is a gift.

And God comes to us as truth. Jesus is not an illusion who pretends to be one of us or pretends to be on our side and then desert us in the times of trouble.

And because of this grace and truth, we are made out to be children of God — not because of anything special we have done, but because of the faith that God works out through us.

Conclusion

And so we come to the last week of our Christmas season, which will end on Thursday with the Epiphany. We hold on to our Christmas stories of Mary and Joseph, the baby, the manger, the shepherds and the animals, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men. And yet here we are faced with John’s Gospel, which starts with none of this. There are no cute Christmas paintings out there of John’s Gospel. Rather, we hear the very promise of the Gospel: In the beginning with the Word… and the Word became flesh and lived among us… full of grace and truth… and whoever believes in Him… shall be called children of God. Merry Christmas. Enjoy the gift. Amen.