Recently I preached at Highfields Church of Christ on the incarnation. It was a challenge, because there was so much I wanted to say.

One of the things that amazed me most as I reflected on the beginning of John’s Gospel was that the man who wrote such powerful statements about The Word who became flesh was someone who knew Jesus intimately. John, the beloved disciple, spent three years living with Jesus. He knew his favourite food, what he smelt like after a long day on the road or mingling with crowds, whether he snored and what made him laugh or cry. He knew him as a man. And yet he could write that he was God, and made everything. I can’t get my head around what that must have been like.

Spending time in this amazing passage filled me with awe and gratitude for a God who cares for us so deeply!

Here’s the sermon, if you’d like to listen to it. I have put the text below, in case you would rather read it.

I was excited to be asked to preach in this special season of preparation. There are so many different things we could contemplate. There are the stories of Jesus’ conception and birth, and all the different people God used. There is the wonder of a saviour, and a prince of peace. There are all the amazing Old Testament prophesies regarding Jesus. There is the star and the stable and the donkey. But when I prayed about what God wanted me to sit in, I was drawn to the incarnation. So today we’re going to meditate on one main verse – John 1:14, which tells us that the Word became flesh.

Prologue

When John wrote his Gospel, he wanted to make sure that his readers knew from the beginning exactly who Jesus was. So he wrote what is called a Prologue, or introduction. In Greek literature, prologues were common. They didn’t just introduce the characters and the setting of the coming story, they also gave the big picture of how the gods (or in our case God) are at work in the story. In John’s Prologue, we can see two strands woven together – the historical story of Jesus’ early ministry, and the cosmic reality of who Jesus was. Today we’re just going to look at the big picture part.

John was Jesus’ beloved disciple, so he knew Jesus well. He had seen him tired and hungry and excited and sad and angry and joyous. He knew what he smelt like after a long day on the road, he knew what his favourite foods were, and what sort of jokes made him laugh. He knew the sound of his voice and the feel of his hands. He knew the humanity of him. And his gospel is full of little details that reflect this. John tells us that Jesus wept for Lazarus, that he was tired and thirsty from a journey, that he got angry with the sellers in the temple. John does not try and hide Jesus vulnerability from us. But from the very beginning, he wants us to be in no doubt that this man Jesus is God.

The verse we’re going to focus on today is

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

Let’s pull it apart a little.

 

The Word

If you had never heard this verse before, the idea of Word becoming flesh wouldn’t make much sense. What does John mean by Word, or as he said logos?

A word is a meaningful utterance. The point of words is to communicate. The use of Word as a title for God points us to a God who wants to reveal himself.

For the Hebrew listener, these verses would have taken them back to Genesis 1, where God spoke the world into being, and all the places in the Old Testament where God’s word is described as powerful and life changing.

For the Greek listener, logos was a symbol of divine wisdom – the reason that the world acts in a predictable and orderly way. It’s where we get the word Logic from, and why all the sciences are -ologies.

So what does John mean by Word? To find out, we need to go back to the first 5 verses of this chapter. John tells us very clearly about the Word.

John 1:1–5 (NIV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

So what does John want us to know about the Word?

We find out that the Word has always existed.

That the Word is both with God and is God.

That everything was made through him

That in him is light and life

That there is a power opposing the Word, but it will not win

Eternal

The Word is not a created being. He existed before time began. He is eternal.

Is God

It’s hard for us to make sense of how Jesus can be both with God and be God. Of course, this is what theologians came to call the Trinity. The concept of one God in three persons. But we don’t have time to dive into that today! It does invite the analogy for the trinity of Father as divine speaker, Son as Word spoken, Spirit as breath on which it is spoken, though.

Made Everything

We’re told in Genesis 1, that God spoke the world into being. John wants us to know that Jesus is the word that God spoke when he created.

Light and Life

It’s not just the creation is made through the Word. It is also animated and sustained through him

The writer of Hebrews tells us much the same things in a different way.

Hebrews 1:2–3 (NIV)

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

The darkness has not overcome it

John points to one of the reasons that Jesus needed to come to earth – to overcome the darkness. We needed a saviour, and the Word came to be that saviour

So when we hear Word in John 1:14, we know that John is talking about God, creator, sustainer, life-giver, saviour.

And he says that the Word became flesh

This is absolutely startling. How can creator become creation? How can immortal become mortal? How can God exist in a few cells in a woman’s body, or have to learn to walk and talk and use the toilet. It is a mystery.

I was talking to someone who was exploring Christianity and Islam. This was his big problem with Christianity. His logic couldn’t fathom how an eternal, all powerful, all knowing, onmipresent God could become a human being. Even more, could become a few cells in a woman’s body. It was too much for him.

I had to say that I don’t think that it is possible for us to understand this. It’s true, it doesn’t make sense to us. We can’t explain it or give analogies to it. We have to accept it, by faith.

When John tells us that God became a person he uses the Greek word sarx. This is the word that Paul uses when he about us being ruled by the flesh. It has connotations of vulnerability and sinfulness and limitation .  There is another, more neutral Greek word for body- soma, which he could have chosen but didn’t. he could also have chosen the word anthropos, which means man or human. But John used the harshest term, flesh. It refers to the whole person, flesh, bones, blood and soul. When God chose to take human form he took on our full nature, including our desire to rebel. In all ways he was tempted as we are, but without sin.

Hebrews 4:14–16 NIV

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

 If Jesus wasn’t really tempted by sin, then he wouldn’t really know what it is to be human. But God, the God who has always existed, who created everything that is, became a weak human being, with temptations and needs and weaknesses, not to rescue us from our bodies but to restore them to what they were meant to be.

 

It’s also important to notice that John makes it very clear that the Word didn’t stop being the Word when he became flesh. He did not cease to be God. Like when a woman has her first baby she becomes a mother but doesn’t stop being a woman. And it was not a temporary thing. Jesus didn’t just put on flesh to make an appearance on earth and then go back to being God. He ascended into heaven after his resurrection in his restored body. Since his incarnation, Jesus is eternally God-man.

 

He made his Dwelling among us

John 1:14 (NIV)

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

Made his dwelling – pitched his tent – tabernacled. Like God in the Garden, and like the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple in Jerusalem, where God’s shekinah glory was revealed, Jesus is God present with us. And not just a polite visit. He came to live.

 

We saw his glory

And we saw his glory, glory as the unique Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John wants us to know that this wonder could be seen and touched, and as he goes on to tell us, he himself saw and touched him.(1 John 1:1).

I keep trying to imagine what it would be like, writing these statements about a man that you knew, who you had lived with for three years. To see the glory of God in a human being. You would think it would conceal God’s glory, becoming flesh.  But Jesus revealed God’s glory – his presence and his power. As it says in Hebrews 1, he is the radiance of God’s glory.

Jesus said if you have seen me you have seen the Father- he showed us exactly what God is like – full of grace and truth

 

So we what does it mean for us, that God became flesh? There are loads of implications, and I would encourage you to meditate on this concept, and ask God to speak to you about it.

 

God revealed himself through the Son

The only way that God could fully reveal himself to his people was to become one of us. To set up his tent in our neighourhood. To share our tears and our joys, our pleasures and our pains, our trials and our triumphs. To become flesh.

In the beginning, in the Garden, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve. That was his plan for us. To be his companions, his children, his friends. God became flesh so that that sort of relationship could be restored.

Hebrews 4:16 NIV

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We worship a God who calls himself Word – how much he wants to communicate with us!

 

Matter Matters

One thing that I’ve been mediating on is what it says about us. When God made us, he made us both physical and spiritual. He made a physical world for us to live in. He didn’t have to do this. He did it because he wanted to. Matter wasn’t a mistake – he said that it was good. And he said that people were very good. Of course, we rebelled, and damaged the good creation that God made. But when he devised a rescue plan for us, he didn’t just rescue us spiritually. He came to us in our flesh, and rescued not just our spirits but our bodies too.

A core Christian belief is the resurrection of the body. But its not something we talk about much.

Romans 8:11 NIV

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

The salvation that Jesus came to bring us is not just a spiritual thing, where we get to escape from this physical body and float around in heaven. No, the hope that he came to bring is the redemption of our bodies, a restoration of what we were originally intended to be. Jesus was resurrected in an immortal body, and so will we be. he didn’t just defeat sin, he defeated death. and we will reign with him in a new heaven and a new earth.

God deeply cares about this world that he made. He cares enough that he became part of it. And he will redeem it too.

Romans 8:21 NIV

that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

I think often our view of salvation is too small. We think of being saved from our sins. And of course we are. But God becoming flesh and dwelling among us points to so much more. God wants to redeem and restore all of us.

Advent

This Christmas, take some time to meditate on the miracle of God made flesh, who wants to live with us, to show himself to us, to redeem us and to love us, and to restore the amazing creation that he made.