CHRISTMAS 2, B – January 4, 2009

SCRIPTURES – Isaiah 9:1-7; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-5, 9-18

I thought seriously about reading these words, telling you to meditate upon them, and then sitting down and having nothing but silence for the next fifteen minutes. What can I say that could even begin to compare with these words and honor the Lord who inspired them? We should not only be silent before Him; we should fall upon our faces in humble reverence before such a great and awesome God! Obviously, I decided against silent meditation. It’s not only because we – everyone of us, myself included – are weak and sinful and wouldn’t truly contemplate these words and honor our God as we should. No, I decided against this because this is not really what God wants. God is the Word, and so He is to be spoken; preached; sung; shouted aloud! I will not ask for your silent meditation, then, but for your energetic listening.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It’s no wonder that for centuries the eagle has symbolized the apostle John and his Gospel. His words are lofty and high, soaring far above all human wisdom. How incredible, astounding, and mysterious is what he proclaims about God!

1. “In the beginning was the Word.” These words echo the first words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God did so, of course, by His Word. This Word, John says, is eternal, already present when all things that now exist began. He who is the Word is. He has no beginning, but simply exists. Meditate upon that for a while! So much for our comprehending God. So much for our demanding that His words not only be completely under-standable to us but also in agreement with our wisdom. God preserve us from such arrogance! “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world,” John says. We must confess our darkness, our blindness, and seek enlightenment about God from the Word, and from His words alone. He is the true, eternal Light, and there is no light apart from Him and His words.
2. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Here is more mystery. The Word is with God – distinct and separate, it seems – and yet is God. So much for separateness! There is oneness of the Word, who is God, with God; and yet there is also distinctness. “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” If you want to know God the Father, the Word must reveal Him, for the Word is the only God.
3. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” The Word who is God is not only the beginning of life, the Creator of all things; He is also the source of life, life’s continuance. “In him was life” – life exists in Him and He is its light. Just as the sun and its light sustains all life on this earth, so the Word who is light sustains us. We do not live without Him.

For these reasons alone we should fall before God, the Word, in utter humility, confess-ing our utter nothingness before Him, our utter dependence upon Him, and His great goodness in giving life and the light of the knowledge of Him to us.

And yet, the most amazing thing that John tells us in his Gospel is this: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The eternal Word; the Word who is with God and is God; the Word who is the Creator and source of life – He became, not simply human, but flesh! Now, the eternal and almighty Creator becoming human – creation – would be amazing enough. But, becoming flesh! That is beyond our comprehension, and certainly beyond our wisdom, for flesh is not good. Keep in mind that John wrote his Gospel long after the other Gospels, as well as the other books of the New Testament, had been written. The teachings about the flesh were well known.

q   When, for instance, Peter confesses Jesus to be the Son of the living God, Jesus responds: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Flesh is ignorant and cannot know Christ. The Father must reveal Him.

q   “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” Jesus later says to all His disciples as He urges them to stay awake and pray with Him before His arrest. The spirit is the godly part of us that has good desires, but the flesh is weak and sinful. Flesh and spirit are divided and at war with one another.

q   The apostle Paul summed up the Scripture’s teachings about the flesh by bluntly saying, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right,” – there is spirit! – “but not the ability to carry it out.” (Rom. 7:18).

And so, you see, when Jesus and the Scriptures speak of the flesh, they are not referring to being human; they are referring to human nature, which is sinful, opposed to God and His ways. Paul sums it up by saying, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom. 8:7-8)

This division within us of spirit and flesh was not God’s plan or desire. No, He made Adam’s body and then breathed into him the breath of life and Adam became a living being: whole, sound, healthy and alive in body and soul, flesh and spirit, one being created to love and honor God and live with Him forever. His sinful disobedience of God’s simple command changed all of that, and ever since, we, Adam’s descend-ants, have been torn apart, divided in flesh and spirit, in rebellion against God and against ourselves.

And then, the Word, He who is the eternal and almighty and holy God – life itself! – became flesh. The Word not only becomes human; He takes upon and within Himself our sinful human nature, with its rebellion and opposition to God. The eternal light takes our darkness within Himself; He who is life joins Himself with death and decay! This will not be seen in its fullness, of course, until Jesus, the Word made flesh, takes upon Himself the sins of the world and is nailed to a cross, upon which He suffers God’s punishment of sin and sinners. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” God turns from His Son because He sees flesh: the sin-filled, stubborn and rebellious human nature.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” For this we should fall before God in humble thanks and praise. For in the Word become flesh we have received holiness, the forgiveness of our sins and the purification of our flesh. In Jesus’ body, the body of God Himself, our division of flesh and spirit has been healed and we are made whole again.

Contemplate upon and rejoice in this, as you hear these words from John 1. Contemplate upon and rejoice in this as you kneel before your Lord in humble adoration and receive into your flesh the flesh and blood of the Word made flesh. For “to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God, who are born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”