The Word made flesh (John 1:1-18)
by tim on Oct.01, 2008, under Sermon
The following message was preached at the St. John’s 7pm service on the 31/8/08.
‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.’ (14)
The lights dim and the buzz dissipates into stillness. Amidst hushed anticipation, the gathered gloom gives birth to a lone figure, striding purposefully towards her post. Having secured attention, evidenced by swelling applause from behind her and watchful readiness in front, she takes her place and, after the slightest of pauses, signals commencement.
The music that follows is not the feature; this is understood, for the curtains are not yet open. Yet it is of one piece with the show, and none can doubt it, for it is a tapestry of themes that are to come. This is known as the overture, and it is deliberately designed to set the scene for the play that is about to commence. The audience is introduced to the musical motifs that are so closely entwined with the plot as to be indistinguishable: the hero’s theme; the sinister tones of the villain’s refrain; the lovers’ duet; the haunting strains of an aria of loss. Before an actor so much as appears on stage, we are already familiar with the musical anchor points ahead of us. They are never explained; it is only if you know what is to come that it ‘makes sense’.
John opens his gospel in the same sort of fashion. In these first 18 verses, we are exposed to many of the mega themes that will come up over and over again throughout the rest of his message, such as light, darkness, life, rebirth, witness and revelation. Yet there is one thread woven all the way through this overture, like an instrument that plays the same riff in the midst of all the other themes, contributing to each and binding them all together. What’s more, this specific instrument doesn’t actually play again throughout the rest of the show! It is important, then, that we appreciate its contribution now whilst it plays. We will have the rest of this series on John to appreciate the other important themes, but tonight we want to focus on ‘the Word’.
‘The Word…’
John begins:
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ (1)
More than any other creature on earth, human beings love to communicate with one another; words are the way we do it. Some of us communicate with many words, some with few. We write them down, type them out, whisper them and shout them. We constantly invent technologies to allow us to communicate over greater distances more efficiently and effectively: the loud speaker; the radio; the telephone; video; the internet… and the list goes on! Myspace and Facebook are just the latest in a long line of products that tap into our desire to, in words and pictures, communicate ourselves to one another. Can you imagine what those sites would be like if we took the words away?
What about explaining our actions? Who hasn’t heard a child launch in to a long and complicated explanation of exactly how they ended up where they did. Have a look at the following comic:
Calvin’s mum is, naturally, mystified – as are we. How did Calvin end up in this state?
It is only when we understand, in Calvin’s own words, the events leading up to his predicament that it begins to make a (twisted) kind of sense. His words give us a fuller picture of what was going on from his perspective.
We also use words to teach and to learn; I’m using them right now! We express important ideas and concepts that we need to convey using our words. When we go to school, a large part of our education is in learning the right phrases and terms to accurately express ourselves. We take complicated concepts like algebra, art and assonance and condense them down to a single representative word or phrase. We then use these words as a shorthand that allows us to build up even more complicated and interesting ideas, and the process repeats.
We choose our words carefully, because unless we do so they may be misunderstood, or may convey a message other than – or even contrary to – the one we intended.
We can sum these three ideas up – expressing ourselves, explaining our actions, and instructing others – using the word ‘revelation’. Some things cannot be discovered or found; they must be revealed.
God uses words for all of these purposes as well. First and foremost, God reveals himself to us through his Word. He speaks to Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham, Jacob and so on. To each one he shares a little bit more of his essence, who he is. We can infer some things about God based on his creation, but without his words we are unable to understand what makes him tick, who he is.
Who God is defines what God does. If we do not know his character, we cannot possibly understand what drives his actions. Take the story of the Flood in Genesis 6. A massive flood comes and wipes out the population of the Earth, excepting only 8 people; this is a tragedy by anyone’s standards. It is only when we hear God’s words about this event that we realise that God is a holy and just God, who cannot abide evil. Yet he is also a merciful God, who gives grace to those whom he chooses.
Of course, God also uses words for our instruction. Perhaps the most famous example of this is found in Exodus 20; it is the rare person who has not at least heard of the 10 Commandments. These are a series of explicit instructions that outline how God’s people are to act; at the same time, they further reveal God’s character and show what is important to him. They are what distinguished the people of Israel from all other nations, for God had revealed himself particularly to them.
In addition to the aspects of revelation we have already mentioned, God’s words have one more important characteristic: they accomplish his will. Think back to Genesis 1 & 2. God speaks the word – ‘light’ – and there is light. He speaks again and the waters separate from the sky, then recede to reveal dry land… and so on. It is God’s word that is the vehicle for his will. We can not do this. Occasionally I test this. I lie in bed after I wake up and say ‘up’. You might be surprised that often this has no measurable result at all; when it does, it usually only serves to make my wife grumpy enough to kick me out of bed!
These are God’s words; and they are valuable to us beyond measure. We are fortunate to have God’s words written down for us. As I sit at my desk and write this, I can count 11 different translations of God’s word within arm’s reach. From these, from what God has said, I can something about who God is. Yet John speaks not of God’s words, but of his Word. This Word is a person in his own right, for though he “was with God” and indeed “was God”, he can nevertheless be spoken of as distinct from God. John speaks of a revelation greater than that given through Moses. And just in case we have no idea what he is talking about, John makes it clear:
‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (17).
‘… became flesh…’
Jesus combines all of these aspects of revelation in his person, works and words. He is the new and better – indeed the final and complete – revelation of God. He expresses God’s character in his own character, for he is God. When Jesus shows compassion, it is because his Father is compassionate; when Jesus is angry, we know that the Father is angry. Similarly, Jesus explains to us why God does what he does. He teaches us the response that God desires. And ultimately he accomplishes God’s purposes in the way that no other can. John summarises this at the end of tonight’s passage:
‘No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’ (18)
There is an important question to be answered here: if God has expressed himself fully and finally in Jesus, why do we need the rest of the Bible? Perhaps the New Testament is OK, for at least it is talking about Jesus, but why should I read the Old Testament? The answer is at the same time both simple and profound. The Bible as a whole gives us the vocabulary to understand Jesus. Let me see if I can explain.
Let’s say that Rod’s four year old grandson Josiah sits down by himself in front of the television to watch a Bledisloe Cup match. Unless his indoctrination has already commenced, chances are good he won’t be able to make much of the game. If you asked him about it afterwards, he might be able to tell you that some of the people wore yellow and some black, that the yellow people were cheering at the end and the black ones looked sad… but that would probably be extent of it. If he sat down with Grumps, however, who explained what a try is, a lineout, a scrum, a drop-goal and so on, he would be starting to develop the vocabulary with which to understand and explain the game. As his knowledge and experience increased he would be able to grasp the more complicated aspects of the game, and the words associated with them – rules governing who is offside, what merits a penalty, tactics etc. Eventually he would reach a point where he could describe in detail all the events taking place on the field, and appreciate a Wallaby victory in all its glory!1
Is it any wonder that God, preparing the greatest event in history, wanted us to have the words and concepts with which to appreciate it? So we find that both the Old and New Testaments are riddled with ideas which we can use to understand Jesus. They are important ideas in their own right, and certainly had meaning to their original audience; but in addition to that role they also provide a context for catching some small portion of Jesus’ purpose, words and works. So we can say that Jesus is the new and better Adam, who faced his temptation in the garden yet remained without sin; he is the new and better Abel, killed because the sacrifice he brought was more acceptable than his brother, whose blood cries out, not for vengeance, but for forgiveness; the new and better Joseph, sent ahead by God to make preparation for the salvation of his people; the new and better Moses, through whom come ‘grace and truth’ not just ‘law’. I could keep going like this all night – but I won’t, because to do that would be to miss out on the rest of what John has to say to us. But before I leave this subject let me say that if you have no idea what I am talking about, let encourage you to make some time to spend reading through the Old Testament; don’t settle for a four-year-old’s perspective on the most important event the world has seen or will ever see.
‘… and made his dwelling among us.’
Let us return, then, to the subject at hand: Jesus is the full and final revelatory Word of God. John points out very clearly that there are only two responses to this Word. On the one hand, it is possible to ignore him and even reject him; we know that many do. ‘He was in the world, but though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him’ (10-11). What a tragedy! Imagine that, instead of Rod explaining the game it is now the inventor of Rugby; what a shame it would be if Josiah decided to ignore him or reject him, because he could have no better opportunity of understanding it than that! Or, to shift the illustration, let’s say you were trying to act in one of Shakespeare’s plays and by some freak occurrence of time and space the author appeared to you and wanted to explain your part to you. Would you ignore him? Take this situation and multiply its magnitude many millions of times, and you might be starting to get close to the enormity of what John records: the Author of Life wrote himself into history in order to communicate with his creation.
It is far better, it seems to me, to take advantage of contact with the author, to develop relationship with him. According to John, ‘to all who received him, to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to be children of God’ (12). This is important: in fact, it is what John has been leading up to. The reason Jesus, God’s Word, became flesh, was in order that we might become children of God. It is for this that ‘the Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us’ (14).
How does this relationship come about? According to John, it is ‘to those who received’ the Word that God gives the right to be children of God. How then do you receive Jesus? The first thing is to be sure that we are receiving the right person… and not some other pretending to be him. What’s more, our relationship must be founded on who he has revealed himself to be. Imagine I introduced myself to you as Tim, but you persisted in calling me Ralph, because that’s how you prefer to think of me; or that I told you I couldn’t stand eggs and the next week you serve me up omelette for dinner. Our relationship would not be going good places! This may seem obvious, but it is often overlooked as we choose to receive the Jesus of our imagination rather than the Jesus revealed to us in Scripture. If you do that, you end up worshiping an imaginary God; if, instead, you commit yourself to seeking out the God of the Bible, he will not hide himself from you. After all, ‘the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’ (14) for this very reason. ‘No one has seen the Father, but God, the One and Only, has made him known’ (18).
Read your Bible, and ask that God would reveal his Son to you through it; then ask that he would reveal himself to you through Jesus his Son.