First Sunday of Christmas:

The Word Became Flesh

27 December 2009


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Scripture reading: Psalm 147.

Sermon text: John 1:1-18.


“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” What a welcome to the Gospel according to St. John! St. Matthew began his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus beginning with Abraham; St. Mark began his Gospel with the ministry of John the Baptist; St. Luke began his Gospel with Gabriel’s visit with Zechariah in the Temple. St. John, the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23), began his record of Jesus’ life with one of the greatest confirmations of Jesus’ divinity, equating Him with Almighty God, the one true God of Israel.


Unlike the other Gospel writers, St. John didn’t write a synopsis of Jesus’ life. St. John described his Gospel as an attempt to lead his readers to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Jesus, the Child born in Bethlehem whose birth we celebrated Friday, was more than an infant born in David’s city, to David’s descendants; Jesus was God Himself. Jesus’ identity as God brings a new meaning to God’s promises to Israel. God had long promised a Messiah to restore fallen Israel. Most of Israel missed a clear thread running through the prophecies, especially those of Isaiah: God Himself would serve as Israel’s Anointed One, the Messiah.


St. John began his Gospel with a statement of Jesus’ identity by borrowing the opening words from Genesis: “In the beginning.” He then continued to use Genesis as a means of organizing his opening words, using the creation narrative to describe Jesus’ importance to a world desperately needing redemption from the effects of humanity’s sin recorded in Genesis 3.


Genesis tells us God’s first act of creation: “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). St. John stated, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Genesis tells of of God’s mighty creative acts, resulting in a work that, as the Psalmist reminds us, “declares the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). St. John recorded that John the Baptist came to “bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.” Genesis truthfully records the horrible account of humanity’s fall in the Garden as Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s command. St. John wrote, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” In Genesis, Moses recorded how God would walk “in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). Before Adam’s sin, God would dwell with humanity in the Garden He created. In Jesus’ life, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God had not dwelled with humanity since Adam’s fall. In Jesus’ life, God dwelled with humanity for a lifetime.


At this point, however, St. John diverged from the Genesis story. In Genesis, Moses recorded the story of creation, including the tale of how God made Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve rebelled and brought sin into the world. St. John, recognizing the power of belief in Jesus, joyfully wrote how Jesus reversed the tale of Adam’s transgression: “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”


St. John then recorded another key difference of Jesus’ identity: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Israel broke the Law, leading to exile and oppression. Jesus brought grace and truth. If you want an excellent example, the Mosaic Law required execution as the penalty for adultery. Jesus, in an incident recorded in John 8, demonstrated grace in sparing the woman caught in the very act of adultery.* Jesus also demonstrated grace in healing the cripple at the pool of Bethesda. In one of the greatest acts of grace we can imagine, Jesus forgave St. Peter for his betrayal and St. Thomas for his doubts in the resurrection.


The differences between Genesis and this Gospel revolve around the reversal of Adam’s fall. Adam’s fall led to sin and death. Jesus’ obedience to God in the crucifixion, and the power He revealed in the resurrection, declared to everyone that God had worked to reverse the results of the Fall in the Garden. From this point in history forward, Jesus began working to redeem humanity from the effects of the Fall.


What does this reversal mean for us? Can Jesus’ birth mean more for us today than the gifts we received on Friday and the meals we’ve enjoyed here all month?


I believe that St. John’s emphasis in this passage revolves around two key elements.


First, St. John emphasized Jesus’ humanity, both in this Gospel and in the letter of 1 John (see 1 John 1 for example). This emphasis extended to Jesus’ appearances after the resurrection. Jesus experienced everything we experience in life today. Birth? Jesus experienced it. Puberty? Jesus survived it. (So, it should encourage those of us with teenagers, did his parents.) Heartache? Jesus endured it. Loss of loved ones? St. John recorded Jesus’ tears at Lazarus’ tomb.


Death? St. John gave us one of the most touching and moving descriptions of Jesus’ crucifixion in history. Only St. John tells the story of Jesus’ devotion to Mary, His mother,  as He arranged for St. John to care for her at His death.


Temptation? Interestingly, St. John did not record Jesus’ temptation following His baptism by John the Baptist, but the other Gospel writers dutifully recorded the temptations Jesus endured in His time in the wilderness. The author of Hebrews wrote, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).


This emphasis on Jesus’ humanity should encourage us in our lives. We can face everything we face in life knowing that Jesus also faced trials and temptations in His life. In Adam, we fell victim to sin and continue to fight it every day. In Jesus, we experience victory over sin as the Holy Spirit guides us in life and gives us strength to overcome temptation.


Secondly, we cannot ignore St. John’s words regarding our new identity in Jesus: “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”


Before Jesus, all humanity descended from Adam alone. This means we all bore the penalty of Adam’s sin in the Garden. After Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, everyone who believes in Jesus’ name receives the right “to become children of God.” St. Paul explained to the Roman Christians, this includes everyone who will “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” (Romans 10:9). This means that God adopts us into His family (Romans 8:15-17) and gives us the privileges this brings. We can address Almighty God, the Father and Creator, as our “Father.” We can expect God the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and live within us, guiding us and encouraging us as we live as God expects us to live.


We can also expect the help and encouragement of others adopted into God’s family as His children. God expects us to join His family, the Church, to help one another through life. We can come to the Church to celebrate our triumphs, to help us in our weaknesses, and to strengthen us in our weaknesses and sorrows. We can come into worship and know that God will forgive us of our sins because of our membership in His family. We can come into worship and praise God for His acts in our lives We can also come into worship and lift our requests before God in prayer, expecting Him to answer our prayers as a faithful Father answers His children.


I believe our privileges as God’s children also bring responsibilities.


For one thing, every child of God must follow Jesus’ example of obedience. Jesus obeyed God perfectly in every aspect of His life. We will not meet that standard; Jesus, in the prayer He taught His disciples, included the line, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” However, we must work and live as God’s children, not as those who who “did not receive Him” as St. John described those who rejected Jesus in His earthly ministry.


Jesus also proclaimed the kingdom of God in His ministry. I think the Church today often misunderstands this proclamation. The world doesn’t care to hear that Jesus reigns over heaven and earth, especially as they constantly remind us of the failures of the Church to demonstrate Jesus’ rule over our lives. However, we must proclaim that Jesus rules, beginning with our lives and then continuing in our work throughout our societies and nations. As the Right Rev. N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, wrote in Surprised by Hope, we must proclaim, “God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil, corruption, and death itself have been defeated, and that God’s new world has begun” (p. 227).


Jesus’ proclamation of God’s kingdom included loving others and serving others sacrificially. Jesus healed the sick, comforted the grieving, and convicted the comfortable. We, too, must work to bring healing to others, praying for their physical healing and guiding them to spiritual healing as they confess Jesus as Lord and believe in His resurrection. We, too, must work to bring relief to the suffering, comfort to the grieving, and joy to the sorrowful.


For too long, believers have excessively emphasized life after death as the sole benefit of salvation. Our new life does not begin at our death; it begins at the moment of our salvation and inclusion in the family of God. We must begin working in this life to reveal the kingdom we will enjoy in the next life. In fact, we should begin enjoying the kingdom in this life. We can look to the resurrection and see that God began reversing the effects of Adam’s sin in Jesus and in His family, the Church. We know that, one day, Jesus will return, bringing with Him a new Creation untouched by sin. However, this process begins in our lives today, not after we die. Every person who confesses Jesus as Lord will receive a new body at the resurrection. When we bring others to the family of God — when those we bring confess Jesus as Lord — they, too, will live in the new Creation.


All this became possible because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, the Word become flesh, revealed the kingdom of God and declared it had begun. The Christmas season gives us a wonderful opportunity to proclaim the kingdom in our lives and in the life of our church. If the Word is real to you, let the world know: God is God, Jesus is Lord, and God’s new world has begun in your life.







* Yes, I know this story does not appear in some manuscripts. However, the story clearly fits within St. John’s description of Jesus and exists in all canonical versions of the New Testament in use today.