12/3/67

Scripture: John 1: 1-14.

Text: John 1: 14a; “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” --

For the literalist, the opening verses of the gospel of John are hard reading. Student readers, philosophers and theologians pore over the first verse of the first chapter: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” One can wrestle over that word, “Logos,” for a long time, trying to ferret out just what the writer intended when he used the word. But perhaps the writer did not intend that the reader should figure out some literally-defined concept. Perhaps he was doing something else. Arthur Gossip, in “The Interpreter’s Bible,” affirms that a careful reading of these opening lines show them to be a kind of poetry. Perhaps they were intended to be sung rather than analyzed. Certainly the Oriental of the Near East was more often apt to attempt expression of some great truth in poetic form than is the Westerner whose mind is harnessed to the shafts of scientific fact.

At any rate I find it rewarding to look for the truth in poetic intuition, as I read some parts of the Bible. Here is one who speaks of a truth that is forever --- the Word, the indefinable essence of God -- without beginning, eternally existent, truth unchanging and unchangeable; light that no darkness can overcome; unceasing life; the Word that was with God and was God. Well, I can’t define it either. But I can sense it better as poetry than I can as history or the science of physics or geography.

Perhaps the writer here in John’s gospel is trying to pull back the attention of those of us who have tried to be too literal -- those who have thought of God “out there” somewhere --- in some distant place or realm called “heaven” or “paradise.” Perhaps he is trying to get his reader to understand, by his poetry, the truth that God is with us in the here and now --- in this place where we live --- with us when we are at worship in this house on Sunday, when we go about our tasks in classroom, office, shop, ranch, mill, store or on the highway on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and the rest of the week. Perhaps it may dawn anew on us that God is in our concern over justice for those who have not been able to get a fair deal from life; our concern for peace at the same time we find ourselves a party to cruel and destructive warfare; our concern over the desire of many to escape the hard realities of life with drugs or in eccentric behavior, or excessive reliance on alcohol.

Maybe John’s gospel leads us readers to something great, after singing for a while about the Word, and how John came to witness to the light and proclaim the Word. For he goes on the say “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Before very long, John is talking about Christ --- a man who came, as Jesus, here upon earth, among real people. He certainly was a man; Jesus lived in human flesh like any other mortal person. But the life he lived here upon earth was different from most of our lives. It was as though the very Word of God was his life; as though he were part of that Word, a Son of God’s perfect goodness. “The Word became flesh” --- living with the same hunger and thirst that we have; the same exhilaration and weariness that we know; the same temptations we face; the same attractions and challenges that other people find; the same joys and agonies; the sufferings and triumphs that we share.

Not only did it happen in history something over 1960 years ago; not only did a few people, in a little country we call Palestine, see that Word in the flesh. But the Christ spirit walks with all who will have him through all the centuries and in all the nations since he appeared in the flesh.

Now it is not my purpose to get you lost in what some describe as exclusive “spiritual” concerns. Ours is no time for a religion that never “touches base” with the real issues in the game of life. I hope that our observance of advent -- our reminder of the coming of the Christ-child and the Christ-man -- can be such as to fill us with confidence that he comes to be with us in the hardness and the opportunity of our time.

When we talk about our racial problems, let him be right here with us as we try to find a cure for the concerns that fester and gnaw and erupt in our cities. Let him be right here with us, as we in this community try to be aware of what we can rightly do, and willing to do it. When we talk about the agony of our time over the destruction and slaughter of an undeclared war, let him be found right here with us; right on the battlefield; right with the civilians who suffer and die; right with the soldiers and sailors and airmen who kill and are killed or who live for another day of cunning and struggle. When we think of student unrest and administrative bewilderment, let him be present.

When we differ or disagree as to how people should stand in Christ’s name on the issues of the day, let us feel for His presence in the admission that he may come quite differently to people of different situations. Peter thought he saw him walking over the water; two men on the way to Emmaus did not even recognize him until the breaking of bread at the evening meal. [Luke 24: 13-31]. To one he said, “Go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor.” [Mark 10: 17-22]. To another, who urged that a precious alabaster box of ointment ought to have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor, he said, “You’ll always have the poor to care for; but this is a precious thing which this woman has done for me.” [Mark 14: 3-7]. He could speak with stern rebuke to a Pharisee or to his own apostle. But he said little to Governor Pilate whose power could send him to death. But no one who touched his personality was ever the same again. Let him touch us with that same power and goodness!

We could sing “Sunday hymns” -- even some old favorite like “Onward Christian Soldiers” -- and then hang it up for another week as religion, separated from the major or secular part of our living. Or we can sing our songs and meditate our way toward the spirit of one who can put sacred significance into the whole week --- walking with us in the sordid and sickening as well as in the hopeful and joyful.

“God is for real.” The Word through his Son is for our own real world. Our religion is no blinding escape; its whole point is to help us live life significantly, meaningfully, abundantly.

Now let us spend a little more time with that great text toward which John moves in the first 14 verses of his first chapter: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Herbert Van Meter suggests that we credit the men of the first century AD with the same kind of common sense that we claim for ourselves. Give them credit for poetic expression. Don’t insist that everything they say has to be taken with absolutely literal understanding. We often point out some truth that we think we have perceived with a poetic expression, or perhaps by a humorous reference or even a cartoon quip. Sometimes the meaning which we seek to express is simply beyond our power to express, except by suggestion or implication.

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So it probably was with the writer of John’s Gospel. He had hold of a great truth. Something new had been added to the world’s experience. In the person of Jesus, a man of Nazareth in Galilee, there was something so extraordinary, so good and great, that for this writer no ordinary word could express it.

Note that John’s Gospel just plunges into the account of Jesus’ adult life and ministry. So does Mark’s gospel. They spend no time or effort writing of the birth or childhood of Jesus. That is left solely to the accounts of Matthew and Luke. John’s account of Jesus begins with the coming of the Galilean to John his cousin, John the Baptist, to be baptized.

This writer wants his readers soon to feel the person of the Galilean prophet Jesus -- the way he shared the life of the villagers, talked with fishermen, touched with healing those who were sick, lifted the hopes of those who were sad or discouraged. Those people had “heard him Gladly;” God had spoken through him. God, who had in times past, spoken to the fathers through the prophets, and whose ways had been known in the Hebrew law had, “in these last days,” spoken through a Son.

There is a long history of debate and doubt that clouds our understanding of what John is saying. We are somewhat conditioned by the debate. And part of the doctrinal teachings of some branches of the church, badly taught and misunderstood, adds to our confusion. But perhaps we can be clear as to some of the things that John is saying, and what he is not saying. He is saying here that God has provided mankind with an insight, an understanding, a revelation of himself in the person of a man. True, God is a spirit. And much of that spirit could be sensed in this Jesus, who came to the world as a man --- a person! John is not here saying, bluntly, that Jesus is God. He seems to be trying to say that God is seen, felt, perceived in Jesus. He is perhaps saying that as much of God as could be expressed in fully human flesh and form was expressed in “the Word made flesh.” John is not saying that Jesus is the Father, God. Jesus reveals the Father as an obedient son.

This “Word” is not to be confused with God as the One who holds the stars in the courses; the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Jesus was fully man. But in him people had seen as nowhere else, the love that lies at the very heart of Being --- love that seems impossible in anything other than a person.

Once again, let us return to our text: “The Word became flesh.” Does not the writer seem to imply that our religion is rooted in history, and that our faith finds its expression in our human experience? A man, in flesh like our flesh, came into the world. We do not believe just because some prophet had a vision. We do not believe just because some scholar, or school of scholars, built a fine structure of reason. We believe, most of all, because a real person -- at a time; at a place -- lived in human history.

Do we sense the importance of this? There is a great difference between having ideas about God and meeting God revealed in a life. We see bits of the devil and of the angel in people around us -- (and probably they see some of the same in us.) The talk of goodness, of loving concern, of caring, of helpfulness, of encouragement, comes to life when we see it in the lives of people. In Jesus we have “the realized ideal;” the finest and best that a person could imagine is known in the person who, for a time, in a place, inhabited the flesh of Jesus. All that Jesus taught about God and man is authenticated and lived in himself. He was as real as you or I -- and more profoundly real than any of us. What significance does this have for us in the kind of world where we live?

1) Well, for one thing, it invests our life with dignity. There are those who despair of life, who regard it as “vanity of vanities,” who expect only weakness and perversity and callous selfishness from human nature. Having seen and sensed the Christ in Jesus, we know better than that. We know that life was meant to be a lot better than we often see it. It was meant to be Christ-like. The fact that a man lived such a life, “tempted as we are, yet without sinning” (as one reads in the book of Hebrews; [Hebrews 4: 15]) rebukes and reminds and challenges us. Our easy acceptance of every compromise, our resignation to the evil forces of life, our attempts to justify and excuse just “won’t wash” in his light.

Jesus brings a renewed dignity to human living and clothes it with divinity. In “the Word made flesh” we are assured that God has confidence in us even after we had lost confidence in ourselves. He holds us in His regard not by weighing our poor merits, but by pardoning our offenses. He cherishes us in spite of what we often are. He so loves us that he has given “His only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (You remember John 3: 16). He believes in us, and expects goodness and greatness in us.

2) Another thing of significance for us is that our text speaks to our life right here and now in the kind of world where we live --- not in some holy place apart, not in some other, perhaps ideal kind of world, not just in some vague hereafter. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” “His name shall be called ‘Emmanuel’ (which means, ‘God with us’) writes Matthew. [1:23] The presence of God with us, where we buy and sell, where we learn and teach, where we strive and compete, where we worry about our children, where youth acts out its frustrations and uncertainty, where we know confusion and tension and despair and hope --- God is with us and redeems this life and glorifies the commonplace.

Advent and Christmas are seasons of reminder that Christ came, and continually comes into the here and now --- not just “out there somewhere,” not shut up and cloistered-off in some safe sanctuary; not confined in some small space, nor limited to a certain time or spot in history; not shut in nor fenced out, not just to a recurring hour on Sunday morning, not only in a moment of response to a prayer of desperation, but to all of life, all of the time, everywhere. The “Word became flesh” reminds us that he is present when men hurt and women grieve and children hunger, and youth rebels. He is present where we fear the future, where flesh is bruised, where selfishness turns to tyranny, where hope awaits the bellows of a renewed assurance to fan up its flame.

A poet has said that “the way to God is by the road of men.” This is the truth of which Scripture speaks when we read that, in the last Judgment, the “blessed” are those who have fed the hungry and clothed the naked, have given a cup of cool water to “the least of these my brethren.” [Matthew 25: 40]. It is as we serve our brothers, and serve with our fellows, that we sense God.

The prophet Amos of olden time cried out as if God were speaking: “I hate, I despise hour holy feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies --- But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” [Amos 5: 21, 24]. The prophecy finds expression in Jesus who lived among people both fasting and feasting, discussing and worshipping in temple or in the field, setting his face to go to dangerous Jerusalem where he was to die a violent death. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

3) And, once again, this great text teaches us; if we can learn anything from it, that the Word must become flesh in us. That is what Advent and Christmas is all about --- not only that Jesus was God’s gift to the world, but also that he is God’s gift to us, now. And we, who suppose ourselves to be Christian, must receive him. The only thing by which people are really convinced of the truth of Christmas is not in an argument but in a personality in which the Word shines forth. There are few who can be preached, or argued, into faith. But Christian character can be convincing to many!

Who has not felt the compulsion of great lives, greatly lived? Who is not what he is because of some friend, a wife or husband or parent, a teacher, perhaps a son or daughter, a hero of history or a champion of today’s struggle --- someone through whose life he had learned the power of goodness, the strength of truth, the dignity of honor, the challenge of courage? If you or I can recognize “the Word” in others in some way that has helped us, then the command to us is clear: “Go thou and do likewise;” “Go and be likewise.”

Paul, writing to the Christians at Philippi, said it: “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus .... for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” [Philippians 2: 5, 13].

Christ called his disciples “the light of the world.” The world should be able to see some of that light in Christians such as we are.

Some anonymous writer has said that “it is not the function of the Christian Church to create a new civilization; it is the church’s function to create the creators of a new civilization.”

“The Word became flesh” to us. Now let the Word become flesh in us!

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, December 3, 1967.

Also at Imiola Church, November 30, 1969.

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, November 28, 1971.