I sorta joked with you at Christmas about how soft and cuddly God is for us when we picture the baby Jesus lying in a manger. If you recall, I noted that, for me, there is nothing wrong with having as our primary image of God, Jesus as a tiny infant. Luke’s Nativity story gives us a wonderful insight into the Incarnation. This morning, however, we get a whole different way to view the Incarnation; God becoming flesh. In 18 verses John takes us on a philosophical trek from Creation to Incarnation. Now, it would be really easy to get bogged down in the philosophical trek part of this. We could sit and ponder John’s use of words that would carry weight with both Greek scholars in Athens, Roman philosophers in Alexandria and Jewish minds in Jerusalem. Then we could have fun with it by bringing the concepts forward 2000 years and comparing John’s intentional use of language with postmodern philosophy’s in depth study of the impact a name has on an entity. I found a 218 page book on Amazon called Incarnate Word, Inscribed Flesh: John’s Prologue and the Postmodern. It would be such a delight if we were in a seminary classroom, but I feel y’all might run me out of Foley after a three hour lecture.
So instead, I propose we deal with the second task of John; taking his readers from Creation to Incarnation. We all know very well that God is hard to get our minds around. Be it the concept of God or the person to whom we offer prayer and praise, God is beyond our comprehension. Perhaps that is why John decides to begin this trip at the beginning, or more accurately before the beginning. John dives right into his account of the Good News of Jesus Christ by placing us with the Trinity before Creation. We get a glimpse into that difficult world called theology as we try to think about what it means that “In the beginning WAS the Word.” Not “In the beginning the Word began,” but “In the beginning WAS the Word.” John is letting us know that we are not dealing with something that was created, but rather the Creator. Before time and space and matter and life existed, before the beginning the Creator was. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; three-in-one; in perfect harmony with one another, are hanging out before the beginning.
John then proceeds to take us on the journey; the culmination of which comes in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” From the Trinity in perfect harmony to the Word spoken at Creation to the prophecy of John the Baptist all was pointing to one final event; the Word becoming Flesh. But not just the Word becoming Flesh for a minute or two to fix a couple of small issues with Creation. The Word became Flesh and made his dwelling among us. The Word became Flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and set his tent up alongside us.
There is the moment of grace for us. God dwelt among us. See 2000 years removed from Jesus walking on earth it is easy for us to miss how huge that is; that God walked among humans. But for Jew, Greek, and Roman alike this was more than huge; it was universe altering. For the Jew, Greek, and Roman the divine made their home in the Temple. Be it the Tabernacle the Jews carried in the wilderness or the Parthenon of Athena for the Greeks – the divine were considered too holy and thus too dangerous to be in the realm of normal human beings. It was the job of the priests and priestesses to interact with the divine. And so, for John’s audience the concept that God would make his tent alongside us is a major deviation from theology as usual.
This change that marks the beginning of John’s gospel is the crux of John’s theology. That the Word was made to be In Fleshed means that the light of God came into a world considered to be dark and the darkness could not overcome it. Though it may have looked like darkness won when the light of life was snuffed out upon the cross, John knows, and wants his readers and us to know, that the story does not end there. God making his tent alongside us means that holiness, while still dangerous, is not as dangerous as once thought. The divine has been made available to all. God In Flesh did not destroy Creation and Creation did not destroy God In Flesh. What wonderful news John has to share with his readers and still today with us – God; who from before time was; entered the world with grace and truth, to make us all children of God; not just Caesar, not just the priests and priestesses, not just the Pharisees, but everyone could come to be an heir of the light of life through The Word In Flesh.
The Prologue to John’s gospel is beautiful. It is poetry without rival, but like poetry, for me, it is scary. It is so deep with meaning and nuance that I fear constantly I am missing a huge chunk of what is being said. It is philosophy that spoke to the greatest minds of John’s time. It is so over-my-head that I know I am just scratching the surface of what John’s message was and is. Ultimately, however whether poetry or philosophy, the Prologue to John’s gospel is good news of great joy. Verse 18 sums it up for us best, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.”
He setup camp alongside us. He walked among us as a light to the world. And he made God known. He made God accessible to us all. He removed the barriers that humanity had set up and made the darkness bright. And, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” Thanks be to God! Amen. Amen.
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