January 2, 2007 - "The Word Became FLESH!"

Title: “The Word Became FLESH!”
Text: John 1:[1-9] 10-18
Day: Seminary Chapel (from 2nd Sunday after Christmas)
Date: January 2, 2007

Welcome back. I hope you all had a restful and joyous break. I sure did. Eryn and I were able to fly out to Arizona to spend Christmas with her family. About half of our time was spent in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona, where there are miles and miles of wide open spaces to explore while keeping one eye on the lookout for bears, mountain lions or other things that could cause serious harm to our vulnerable human bodies.
I managed to steer clear of the dangers of the flesh-eating quadruped variety, but I failed to escape danger altogether. On Christmas afternoon, after stuffing myself with stuffing, I decided it was in my best interest to go on a little hike with the fam. The trail that we chose, however, began on the opposite side of a mountain stream fed by snow runoff. To get to the trailhead we had to traverse a small, harmless looking ice and snow bridge that crossed the ankle-deep stream. Eryn successfully crossed, followed by the family dog, followed by my mother-in-law. Then I began the slow, steady, slippery trek. Not so bad, I thought. Then a little slip on some ice…but I caught myself just in the nick of time. A stood still for a second to settle down. Only six feet to go. Then, CRACK! The ice gave way under my feet and – in very slow motion – I found myself falling helplessly, backwards, into the icy water with visions of hypothermia dancing through my head.
Luckily, this was the beginning of our hike, so we only had to walk back to the car and drive the short distance back to the cabin where I could change clothes and warm myself up. Other than hurting my pride, I managed to escape the embarrassing situation with a scrape and a nice sized bruise on my butticular region.
But this chilly experience reminded me, as I attempted to soothe my bruised body by sitting on an ice pack, that our bodies are rather fragile. They hurt easily. They are susceptible to sickness, diseases of all sorts, and – of course – one day our bodies will just stop working and we will die.
Perhaps that is why it is so hard to understand the Johannine phrase “and the Word became flesh.” Flesh! Why in the world would the Divine Word choose to become something that is so…so vulnerable, so fragile, so corruptible! So capable of breaking or bruising!
But that’s what John writes. “And the Word became flesh.” John does not mince words. He is simple and direct. The entire prologue seems to lead up to this one succinct phrase. Starting at the very beginning (a very good place to start, after all), John creatively weaves together the story of the pre-existent Word: how it was in the beginning with God; how everything came into being through the Word; how the Word was life and light and grace and truth; how John testified to the Word; how the Word was not accepted by the world; how those who received the Word became children of God. All of this is written in such a way as to entice people and prepare them for this one powerful statement, “and the Word became flesh.”
In a stroke of brilliance, John somehow is able to use this one succinct phrase to sum up the entire Christmas story (as John tells it), while at the same time using this one succinct phrase to point towards the inevitable conclusion of that story. For we know that the natural outcome of becoming flesh, of taking on a real body, is death.
Death confronts us daily. Over the break we were confronted by several deaths that made national news, among them were James Brown – the granddaddy of soul, the 3,000th U.S. Soldier killed in Iraq, Iraq’s Former Dictator Saddam Hussein, and President Gerald Ford, who – as far as I know – had nothing to do with Iraq. Today, in fact, is designated as the National Day of Mourning over the death of President Ford. Now keep in mind that these are the deaths that made our national news. In fact, thousands upon thousands of people died over our break, and we will never hear about most of them.
Death confronts us daily. It was interesting to notice how people reacted to the news of these nationally known deaths that occurred at the end of December. Just after celebrating Christmas Day with family and friends – a day on which we celebrate life with birth of Jesus Christ – we were suddenly and unexpectedly confronted by death. Some people didn’t know how to react. For them, these two events – Christmas and death – clashed in their minds.
Those who have had loved ones die around Christmas grapple with these same dichotomous emotions every year. A strange and uneasy mix of life and death together. It surely attaches a different mood to Christmas – certainly not the mood that retail stores would have you feeling at this time of year. Perhaps this is the effect that John was going for by his phrase “and the Word became flesh;” perhaps John wanted to confront us with the reality of life and death.
Over the break, I finally had opportunity to read a book for pleasure, and I decided to take along a book by Bill Bryson with the rather ambitious title A Short History of Nearly Everything. In this book Bryson admits to feeling like the science that he learned in grade school all went over his head. So he recently decided to re-learn…well…nearly everything. And for those poor saps who suffered the same fate as him (like me!), Bryson wrote this book containing rather simple explanations to rather extraordinary things.
Among other things, this book has made me especially appreciative of these things we call bodies, and the rather fragile state of existence we are blessed to experience. He writes:
“To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you…For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally underappreciated state known as existence…The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting – fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to be other things. And that’s it for you.” (Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway: New York, 2003. pp. 1-2.)
After reading this humorous yet astoundingly blunt section of the book, I came away with a supreme feeling of awe and wonder at this…this body…this flesh. And I felt a supreme sense of awe and wonder in John’s succinct phrase “and the Word became flesh.” I began to understand how this can also be a powerful word of Good News!
“The Word became flesh!” That God would dare to love us so much that the Divine Word would come in body and blood, would take on our weakness, take on our frailty, take on our vulnerability, take on our stinky, death-prone flesh; that the Incarnate Word would meet us in the flesh and be so obedient to the will of God as to suffer death on a cross thereby defeating the very power of death; or, in the words of the writer of Hebrews, that “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15)…nothing else could express God’s immense love and care for us more than this: that the Word became flesh is in fact the very center of our life and faith and hope.
So, as we wrap up 2006, remembering the lives and deaths of those who have gone before us this year, let us find solace in the good news found in John’s confounding climax and which is repeated over and over again throughout the Scriptures: The Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, became flesh.
This is good news indeed. Thanks be to God.