And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
On Christmas 2 the Revised Common Lectionary treats us to that rather prolix and confusing passage which forms the prologue to John’s gospel (John 1:1-18). “In the beginning was the Word…” You kind of have to read down to figure out that “Word” is used synonymously with Jesus. If you want to get really eggheaded about it, the Greek is “Logos.” (Logos for you fans of the original language!). It means more than just a part of speech. It represents the whole essence or idea behind something. Note that the word for the study of some subject in English ends with “logy” as in zoology or biology, or geology. “Word” is more than just a noun, verb, adjective or any combination of letters which stand for an idea. It is the very idea itself.
In Genesis, God’s Word creates all that is. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light;’ and there was light.”[i] God’s word speaks everything into existence. What I like about John’s prologue, besides its very poetic phrasing, is it allows us to see how Christian thought about the nature of Jesus had evolved during the first century of our faith. Paul, writing in the 40’s of the Common Era, told us that Jesus “was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.”[ii] Later, when Mark gets around to writing his gospel, he has Jesus declared Son of God at his baptism.[iii] Both Mathew and Luke, when they tell their Christmas stories, take this idea of Jesus’ divine relationship a bit further and tell us that God had made Jesus his own at the time of his conception. But our man John takes this idea and runs it back even further. Jesus is the divine Word—he’s the essence of God, and he was with God from before the start of time. “In the beginning…”
Two things
about this: First, we’re reminded when John says “the Word was God,” he reminds
us that the mystery that is God’s person is both singular and plural. After
all, if God is love, then there has to be an object of that love. You can’t
just love in a vacuum. The second important aspect of this doctrine is the
knowledge that the Word would become flesh and dwell among us. From the very
beginning of time, God intended to have a personal relationship with God’s
creation—us.
If the COVID pandemic has taught us nothing else, it’s taught us how important personal interaction is. We certainly can communicate now with anyone on earth (or on the International Space Station..!) in real time via our technology. But, it’s just not the same as being able to see someone in the flesh. At Christmas and other holidays, we long for that physical presence. The shut-downs and social distance of the last two years have reminded us how much we need to see and touch each other.
If the Word did not become flesh, we would still be awed by the glory and majesty of God, but we wouldn’t be able to relate to God because we wouldn’t feel God related to us. When the Word came to be with us, to grow up with us, feel fear and persecution and rejection, know fatigue and pain, and finally face death, we could finally get a sense of how much God loves us. We can know God, because we know God knows us through Jesus Christ.
Some people may say they experience God in nature or in quiet meditation. Perhaps they do. For my money, however, if all we see of God is creation, than all we are experiencing is God’s inscrutability, and that can be pretty scary. The universe is a big place, and we’re pretty small in comparison. Even our own planet, beautiful as it is, is full of earthquakes and floods and tornados and lots of unpredictable stuff. No. If we want to experience the totality of God, we have to see God in the flesh dwelling among us.
The Greek word John uses for “lived” or “dwelt” among us is “iskenosen” (iskenosen) which is literally translated as “tabernacled.” The tabernacle, if you’ll recall from Exodus, was a big tent. Basically, Jesus came to share our tent. Any Boy Scout knows how close you get to someone when you share the same tent. It creates a really special relationship when, for survival’s sake, you share limited shelter which you know will not be permanent.
That’s kind of how we are with Jesus. He came to join us in our temporary tent. We saw him weep in compassion, feel pity and have mercy, grant forgiveness, and accept those who were deemed unacceptable. In these very human acts, we got a glimpse of God’s holiness. Indeed, when we see Jesus’ humanity, his sacrificial suffering and love, we are really seeing his divinity.
John’s gospel always glues the human Jesus to the divinity of God. John always reminds us to look at the person if we want to know anything about the unknowable God. The cool thing is we can see God in each other whenever we see the things of Jesus active in each other. In order to learn to love God, we have to start by loving each other.[iv]
It’s pretty great to be sharing this tent with Jesus. May God bless you all and have a very blessed New Year!
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