John A. Stroman
And the Word became flesh and lived among us....-- John 1:14
William Barclay is convinced that John wrote the fourth gospel for the sake of this fourteenth verse. Early in the first chapter John talked about the Word: the creative and dynamic word. The Word was the agent bringing about creation.
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 anything made that was made. -- John 1:3
In the beginning it was this directing, controlling Word which put order in the universe and mind in women and men. John states an incredible, startling fact unheard of in his first century world: the Word, the power, the dynamic, the reason that orders and controls the world "has become flesh and dwells among us." John goes on to say that "we have seen with our eyes ... and touched with our hands ... the word of life" (1 John 1:1-2). John's message is that this Word has come to the earth in human form. God, who was so distant, is now near. John is saying that if you want to see what this creating Word, this dynamic power, this controlling reason looks like -- look at Jesus of Nazareth. "... In him was life, and the life was the light of all people" (John 1:4).
Leonard Griffith, the outstanding pastor in Toronto, tells the story of a mother who was putting her little daughter to bed in the midst of a thunderstorm. She told her daughter that she did not need to be frightened, that her mother and father were close by in the living room. The girl replied to her mother, "Mommy, but when it thunders this way, I want somebody who has skin on." This simple, homely story, in essence, is the essential truth of our text. The invisible spirit of God did clothe himself in skin, flesh, and blood and came to dwell among us with grace and truth.
God Has Put On Flesh
Prior to the coming of Christ there were those who acknowledged that they had seen God. This was at best a partial, rather general revelation of God. For the writer of Psalm 8 there was the knowledge of God in nature. For Israel there was the knowledge of God through history. God was seen in their hearts. But in Christ, God became clothed in human flesh. People now see God with their eyes. God has put on skin. God is down to earth.
God Is Approachable
Now that Word has been uttered by a human being, who lived among us like other human beings. Now a human being shows us the splendor of divine nature in terms of a personal character and social action, and finds us where we live. In other words, in Jesus Christ, God is down to earth.
The best people, the most useful and helpful people, are down-to-earth people. Abraham Lincoln was known for his leadership in uniting a divided nation. What the people loved about Lincoln, was his down-to-earth nature. He identified with common people. He was approachable. Carl Sandburg, in his biography of Lincoln, tells how on certain days each month the people were invited to the White House to bring their concerns to the President. The people came because they were convinced that their president cared about them. It was Lincoln who said, "God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them." Above all he was approachable and had time for them, an utter impossibility for a president today.
Desmond Tutu is a brilliant Anglican bishop in South Africa. He could have withdrawn to the ivy towers of academia and even there gain notoriety. But the world respects Desmond Tutu because of his willingness to be a down-to-earth bishop who stood with blacks in Soweto until apartheid was finally overcome.
Albert Schweitzer, in a sense, was a high-brow man. He had earned doctor of philosophy and medical degrees, as well as being an authority on Bach and a master at the organ. The world appreciated him, not for his intellectual capacity, but for being down-to-earth in his servanthood to the people of Africa.
The world's memorable people are not only talented, but down-to-earth and approachable. In Christ, God is approachable. It was by the incarnation that God came to the earth, becoming accessible to all.
This text, John 1:14, about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us with grace and truth, is often heard, but seems to have little meaning to our ears. It contains a basic truth but it is one that we seem to stumble over. It contains not only a basic truth, but a mystery. It is difficult for us to accept the fact that God is so down-to-earth, that God should come to us on such human and ordinary terms. We are astonished at God's availability.
What's So Great About Jesus?
I had the opportunity to attend the morning worship service at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City and to hear David H.C. Read preach just before his retirement. He told the story of a grandmother in his church who wanted her grandson to attend Sunday School. One Sunday she arranged to pick him up and bring him to Sunday School with her. On the way home she was anxious to hear what he had to say about his Sunday School experience, so she asked him, "How did things go this morning?"
He thought for a moment and then he said to her, "Grandma, what's so great about Jesus?" Hearing this, I thought: that's what Christmas is all about -- telling our children and our grandchildren what is so great about Jesus. A mother told me after church one Sunday during Advent that she asked her son what Christmas was all about. She said she was holding her breath waiting for his reply, thinking that it might include merely the receiving of gifts and Santa Claus. Without the slightest hesitation he said, "It is the birthday of Jesus." She was so happy, she hugged him.
Norman Cousins, in telling about his visit with Albert Schweitzer, described the regular after-dinner ritual in the African jungle hospital at Lambarene. Cousins said the great doctor would announce the hymn to be sung and then sit down at the old upright piano to play. Cousins said that the piano was at least fifty years old. The keyboard was badly stained. One or more strings were missing on a dozen keys. The jungle heat and moisture made its tuning almost impossible. This great interpreter of Bach's organ music sat down to play this dilapidated old instrument. To Cousin's amazement the old instrument seemed to lose its poverty in Schweitzer's hands. Its capacity to yield music was now being fully realized. For whatever reason, Schweitzer's presence at the piano seemed to make it right.
What is so great about Jesus? He takes human character, regardless of how broken or dilapidated, as long as it is sensitive to his touch, and he brings out the best in it. That's what is so great about Jesus! He can heal our broken lives. He can bring harmony out of disharmony. He can repair the damaged human instrument. He restores its strength, its resilience, and its capacity to yield noble and joyous music.
God Became Domesticated in Jesus
By means of the incarnation, God becoming flesh, God has come into the midst of life. Jesus knew life as we know it. He was raised in a family as the elder son was eventually responsible for caring for his widowed mother. He knew what it was for one's friends to turn against him, to be falsely accused and to suffer rejection and finally a cruel death. E. Stanley Jones has suggested that in Jesus Christ God became domesticated. He knew life as we know life. Therefore, in the midst of our anguish, pain, and disappointment, we can cry out and say, "Lord, you know how it is!" God does. For God had a son who lived among us full of grace and truth.
The Word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ! This fact is driven home to us as we take the bread and the cup at the Lord's table. In this mystery of holy communion the love of Christ seeks to become flesh in us. There are within this text of John 1:14 subtle tones of a sacramental theology that give meaning to this Gospel of the incarnation. The English poet John Betman is helpful to us when he writes:
No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells,
Can with this simple Truth compare.
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in bread and wine.
When things in this world appear out of control, when disappointment and despair grip your heart, when friends let you down and circumstances appear overwhelming, remember: "The Word of God has become flesh and lives among us full of grace and truth.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us....-- John 1:14
William Barclay is convinced that John wrote the fourth gospel for the sake of this fourteenth verse. Early in the first chapter John talked about the Word: the creative and dynamic word. The Word was the agent bringing about creation.
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 anything made that was made. -- John 1:3
In the beginning it was this directing, controlling Word which put order in the universe and mind in women and men. John states an incredible, startling fact unheard of in his first century world: the Word, the power, the dynamic, the reason that orders and controls the world "has become flesh and dwells among us." John goes on to say that "we have seen with our eyes ... and touched with our hands ... the word of life" (1 John 1:1-2). John's message is that this Word has come to the earth in human form. God, who was so distant, is now near. John is saying that if you want to see what this creating Word, this dynamic power, this controlling reason looks like -- look at Jesus of Nazareth. "... In him was life, and the life was the light of all people" (John 1:4).
Leonard Griffith, the outstanding pastor in Toronto, tells the story of a mother who was putting her little daughter to bed in the midst of a thunderstorm. She told her daughter that she did not need to be frightened, that her mother and father were close by in the living room. The girl replied to her mother, "Mommy, but when it thunders this way, I want somebody who has skin on." This simple, homely story, in essence, is the essential truth of our text. The invisible spirit of God did clothe himself in skin, flesh, and blood and came to dwell among us with grace and truth.
God Has Put On Flesh
Prior to the coming of Christ there were those who acknowledged that they had seen God. This was at best a partial, rather general revelation of God. For the writer of Psalm 8 there was the knowledge of God in nature. For Israel there was the knowledge of God through history. God was seen in their hearts. But in Christ, God became clothed in human flesh. People now see God with their eyes. God has put on skin. God is down to earth.
God Is Approachable
Now that Word has been uttered by a human being, who lived among us like other human beings. Now a human being shows us the splendor of divine nature in terms of a personal character and social action, and finds us where we live. In other words, in Jesus Christ, God is down to earth.
The best people, the most useful and helpful people, are down-to-earth people. Abraham Lincoln was known for his leadership in uniting a divided nation. What the people loved about Lincoln, was his down-to-earth nature. He identified with common people. He was approachable. Carl Sandburg, in his biography of Lincoln, tells how on certain days each month the people were invited to the White House to bring their concerns to the President. The people came because they were convinced that their president cared about them. It was Lincoln who said, "God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them." Above all he was approachable and had time for them, an utter impossibility for a president today.
Desmond Tutu is a brilliant Anglican bishop in South Africa. He could have withdrawn to the ivy towers of academia and even there gain notoriety. But the world respects Desmond Tutu because of his willingness to be a down-to-earth bishop who stood with blacks in Soweto until apartheid was finally overcome.
Albert Schweitzer, in a sense, was a high-brow man. He had earned doctor of philosophy and medical degrees, as well as being an authority on Bach and a master at the organ. The world appreciated him, not for his intellectual capacity, but for being down-to-earth in his servanthood to the people of Africa.
The world's memorable people are not only talented, but down-to-earth and approachable. In Christ, God is approachable. It was by the incarnation that God came to the earth, becoming accessible to all.
This text, John 1:14, about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us with grace and truth, is often heard, but seems to have little meaning to our ears. It contains a basic truth but it is one that we seem to stumble over. It contains not only a basic truth, but a mystery. It is difficult for us to accept the fact that God is so down-to-earth, that God should come to us on such human and ordinary terms. We are astonished at God's availability.
What's So Great About Jesus?
I had the opportunity to attend the morning worship service at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City and to hear David H.C. Read preach just before his retirement. He told the story of a grandmother in his church who wanted her grandson to attend Sunday School. One Sunday she arranged to pick him up and bring him to Sunday School with her. On the way home she was anxious to hear what he had to say about his Sunday School experience, so she asked him, "How did things go this morning?"
He thought for a moment and then he said to her, "Grandma, what's so great about Jesus?" Hearing this, I thought: that's what Christmas is all about -- telling our children and our grandchildren what is so great about Jesus. A mother told me after church one Sunday during Advent that she asked her son what Christmas was all about. She said she was holding her breath waiting for his reply, thinking that it might include merely the receiving of gifts and Santa Claus. Without the slightest hesitation he said, "It is the birthday of Jesus." She was so happy, she hugged him.
Norman Cousins, in telling about his visit with Albert Schweitzer, described the regular after-dinner ritual in the African jungle hospital at Lambarene. Cousins said the great doctor would announce the hymn to be sung and then sit down at the old upright piano to play. Cousins said that the piano was at least fifty years old. The keyboard was badly stained. One or more strings were missing on a dozen keys. The jungle heat and moisture made its tuning almost impossible. This great interpreter of Bach's organ music sat down to play this dilapidated old instrument. To Cousin's amazement the old instrument seemed to lose its poverty in Schweitzer's hands. Its capacity to yield music was now being fully realized. For whatever reason, Schweitzer's presence at the piano seemed to make it right.
What is so great about Jesus? He takes human character, regardless of how broken or dilapidated, as long as it is sensitive to his touch, and he brings out the best in it. That's what is so great about Jesus! He can heal our broken lives. He can bring harmony out of disharmony. He can repair the damaged human instrument. He restores its strength, its resilience, and its capacity to yield noble and joyous music.
God Became Domesticated in Jesus
By means of the incarnation, God becoming flesh, God has come into the midst of life. Jesus knew life as we know it. He was raised in a family as the elder son was eventually responsible for caring for his widowed mother. He knew what it was for one's friends to turn against him, to be falsely accused and to suffer rejection and finally a cruel death. E. Stanley Jones has suggested that in Jesus Christ God became domesticated. He knew life as we know life. Therefore, in the midst of our anguish, pain, and disappointment, we can cry out and say, "Lord, you know how it is!" God does. For God had a son who lived among us full of grace and truth.
The Word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ! This fact is driven home to us as we take the bread and the cup at the Lord's table. In this mystery of holy communion the love of Christ seeks to become flesh in us. There are within this text of John 1:14 subtle tones of a sacramental theology that give meaning to this Gospel of the incarnation. The English poet John Betman is helpful to us when he writes:
No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells,
Can with this simple Truth compare.
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in bread and wine.
When things in this world appear out of control, when disappointment and despair grip your heart, when friends let you down and circumstances appear overwhelming, remember: "The Word of God has become flesh and lives among us full of grace and truth.
