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Word Became Flesh
Intro.
This is week three of being in the Prologue of John.
And Honestly we could probably spend more time swimming in the riches of this passage, but this will be the last week we spend here.
Just an overview of the last 3 weeks.
2 Weeks ago we looked at the purpose statement or thesis of John’s gospel.
He wants us to know and believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God.
He wants us to know that Jesus existed before any and all of creation.
And That he is God.
Last week we looked at Jesus being the true light of the world.
The true light that creates.
We talked about the beauty and majesty of God’s creation.
How when we look at all that God created we are naturally drawn to the place of recognizing that there has to be a creator.
Then we discussed that like the John the Baptist we need to testify to the light of Jesus.
We should be witnesses to the light.
And we were comforted by the fact that even with all the darkness in the world, the Light will not be overcome.
The light of Jesus is going to banish all the darkness.
And when we see the light our response is either to be drawn to it as moths or to flee from it like cockroaches.
In today’s text, John hits the pinnacle of his prologue
Everything he has said up to now has been leading to this moment.
So what I want to do is read what he has said in verses 1-13 before we get into verses 14-18.
This is a refresher to draw back to our minds the truths about Jesus found in these opening verses.
and then we read v.14
Incarnation
Incarnation is a fancy theological term that means that Jesus, fully God, became fully human to accomplish salvation for his people.
God Made Flesh.
Or as John puts it, “The word became flesh.”
This is the first time since the opening lines of John that he returns to the phrase and message of “The Word.”
Remember, this phrase logos, or the word, carries with it a lot of weight.
John tells us that Jn 1:1 “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
So having established that the Word was God he now tells us that God came to live with humanity.
The perfect, holy, and eternal God stepped down into his messy creation.
Now for the Greek readers of this text they were used to stories about their gods coming to walk among humans.
But their stories and teachings about their pantheon of gods was one of them appearing to have flesh.
Or they just put on human skin like a costume.
They came to walkabout and interact with humanity without wanting to actually be a part of humanity.
They didn’t want to defile their divinity with humanity.
And this was not an uncommon view among some who followed Jesus as well.
There were those called Docestist who believed that Jesus didn’t take on a physical body, but rather only appeared as human.
But John is telling us that this is heresy.
Jesus didn’t appear to be human.
Jesus didn’t seem to be human.
Jesus became flesh.
There was a point in time when God came down from his heavenly throne and stepped into our world.
The world he created.
The world that he loved.
And when he came he didn’t separated himself from humanity but he became fully human.
He donned on flesh.
In all aspects he was like us except without sin.
And we have to realize and recognize that with that coming as flesh he dealt with a lot of the same stuff that we deal with.
His experience was fully human yet supremely divine.
Meaning that he didn’t avoid the messiness of life.
He came as a baby.
Had to have his diaper changed.
He had upset stomachs.
He got sick.
He felt pain.
He experienced the death of loved ones.
I was listening to this pastor over the last week and he was talking about how it felt when his father passed away.
And one of the things that he pointed out is the Jesus went through the pain of loss with his earthly father Joseph.
Somewhere between Jesus’ at the temple at 12 and the beginning of his ministry at 30, Joseph died.
Jesus knows what loss feels like.
He knows the sting of betrayal.
He knows what it means to be hungry.
He knows what it means to tired.
He knows what it means to love.
He knows what it means to be human.
I think sometimes we mythologize Jesus.
Meaning that we divorce his Godness from his Humanness.
We have lost the reality that Jesus didn’t come to act human.
He came to be human.
He came to fully participate in humanity.
And yet he was without sin.
We do have to be careful though.
We don’t want to over ascribe humanity to Jesus he was still God.
He lived in the tension of being fully God and fully man.
That can be hard for us to wrap our minds around.
But we need to enjoy the tension knowing that we can’t wrap our minds fully around it.
This is the beginning of the message of the gospel of Jesus.
God came to live as a person.
And as I was thinking about this reality.
I started thinking about what this would look like for us.
How could I relate this truth to you more fully.
I started to think about the thousands of missionaries across the globe that go to third world countries to preach the gospel.
When a missionary does missions work right it is often called an “incarnational ministry.”
Now this isn’t a perfect picture of what Jesus did, but it will help to wrap our minds a little more tightly to Jesus incarnation.
These missionaries leave the comfort of their home.
They leave family behind.
They leave friends behind.
They leave their homes behind.
And they go live with a people group that may accept them or may reject them.
They have to learn the language.
They have to study the customs.
They have to know the right ways to interact with certain groups and individuals.
They don’t have the modern conveniences that we have.
No running water.
No sewage.
No Supermarkets.
No internet.
No Amazon.
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