"The Word became flesh..."

by The Rev Thomas E Clark

Ascension Lutheran Church, Jackson, MS

The gospel lesson for Christmas morning (John 1.1-14), unlike the one we had for Christmas eve, was not your usual Christmas story. The lesson from John is "the morning-after" lesson, the one that tries to make sense of it all after the sun has risen, the angels and shepherds gone and all the hushed wonder of the night before is turning into a blur.

All the build-up to Christmas is now deflating. Soon, we'll begin the slide into the anti-climatic feel we get after something long-anticipated is past, to be replaced by after-Christmas sales, returns of wrong-sized clothing, and dread of preparing income tax returns.

But what was it that just happened? What happened in that place called Bethlehem so long ago? To begin understanding, we need to go back, wayback! Back to the beginning of our scripture itself, a beginning that sounds familiar--"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis speaks of another beginning; a beginning in which God speaks, and creation happens. God's words create; they make things happen; they have power.

Unlike our world, so full of meaningless words, of sound-bites and legalese, TV commercials promising the world but delivering only a slightly brighter version of the previous product, words in the Hebrew Scripture have power and a life of their own. When Jacob tricks his father Isaac into believing he is his brother Esau and Isaac gives him the blessing intended for another, we would tend to think, "OK, Jacob cheated, so the blessing does not count." However, that's not the way it works. Once spoken, the words can't be taken back.

The beginning of John's gospel offers no story of a poor couple looking for a place to spend the night, of angels and shepherds, nor of wise men bearing gifts. Instead, here is the purpose behind the story-God's purpose. It's the story of what was going on with the second person of the Trinity-the "Word" of God-before the Word became flesh.

"The Word became flesh" is the Christmas story with the curtains pulled back. Though it sounds almost philosophical, it presents not an idea that must be explained and solved, but a mystery to be engaged and worshiped and lived.

Somehow, this story reminds me of "The Wizard of Oz." Remember Dorothy seeking out the Wizard as the one who can help her get home? At their first meeting, the Wizard appears amidst smoke and flames as a disembodied, intimidating head and speaking with a booming voice. Later, they discover that he is just ordinary man appearing bigger than he is but faking grandeur through manipulating a console of wheels and levers while speaking into a microphone. Here you find the ordinary pretending to be something more.

The first chapter of John, however, does it all in reverse. Here we find "the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God..." becoming"truly human". But he doesn't stop there. "FOR US and for our salvation... he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became truly human." In the baby in manger, God gives himself to us in a special way. Jesus, the Word made flesh, is God's gift to us.

Jesus, God's present to the world, was sent as a messenger; a word-bearer to us. God's old strategy, putting words in the mouths of prophets and on pages of scripture, had not sufficed. His urgent words of love and warning had not been heeded. God needed to come closer to get our attention. So God gave the message--the Word--flesh.

God made the message itself into a gift-the gift of a child. Jesus would grow to speak the needed words, and hearing him would be like listening to the voice of the giver. We would be able to read what God wanted to say to us in the shape of Jesus' life, in his words and deeds. In the gift of Christ, God says, "See, this is how much. Now do you know? Do you understand?"

This Word, then, is not simply a message you can put into words. It comes as a person, a life enfleshed and enacted. It has to do with compassion and vision, but there is also something desperate in its insistence. "If you won't listen to the law and the prophets, maybe now you'll see." God's mysterious, powerful Word takes a risk and waits for a response.

As we move into the season of Epiphany beginning January 6, the season in which we reflect on Christ the light of the world, reflect on the question, "How will you receive this gift that God made to you in the Word made flesh?"