The Word Became Flesh. The Power and Purpose of God Became A Person
In just a few sentences, John declares an unfathomable truth - the Word became flesh to dwell among us. We’ve heard it a hundred times and it still gives us the warm cozies. But what might come across to us as a beautiful and eloquent introduction to John’s gospel is actually more like a verbal hand grenade.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14 ESV)
I find myself thinking a lot about words at this time of year. Particularly as I write Christmas cards, I spend a good deal of time choosing words for friends and family. After all, what someone hears and reads can have a big impact on all sorts of things, especially relationships. Words have power and purpose, and mean all the more in special seasons. All that comes before I talk about the Word, the Bible, which you know I LOVE to talk about. And my favorite words from the Word at Christmastime come from the Apostle John at the beginning of his gospel. Yes, that John, one of the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17). In just a few sentences, John declares an unfathomable truth - the Word became flesh to dwell among us. We’ve heard it a hundred times and it still gives us the warm cozies. But what might come across to us as a beautiful and eloquent introduction to John’s gospel is actually more like a verbal hand grenade. You and I stand far removed from the people who first received John’s gospel, and the chasms of time and culture have deadened the punch. But the power of these verses still rumbles just under the surface.
The Power of God
Anyone familiar with Scripture will probably get that God’s words have power. All we have to do is go back to Genesis 1 and watch God speak creation into existence. “Let there be light,” He says, and there was light. God’s voice separates the waters from dry land. He speaks all of the species into life and flings stars into the sky with His syllables. God never speaks a careless word because when He speaks, it is so. With just words, God creates everything.
We are made in His image, and so our words carry a certain power, too. Words form the basic building blocks of human communication, transmitting thoughts and ideas — dare I say, realities — from one mind to another. Just as God speaks and reality springs out of His words, our speech shapes the way things are for ourselves and for others. It’s happening right now. The thoughts I’m having now are coming from my brain to yours through strings of words. We use words to teach and learn, to give directions, to share information, or to warn of danger ahead.
Words connect minds, but also hearts. Imagine what happens when someone says, “I love you.” Feel the pain of “goodbye.” We can tell jokes and laugh until we cry. Words have the power to connect and shape experiences. I guess we’d better be careful with them, then. Jesus tells us that it’s out of the overflow of our hearts that our mouths speak (Matthew 12:34). James 3 expounds on the power of our speech for those of us brave enough to hear it.
So if our words have power and God’s words have power, then how much power does the Word have? And yes, I mean the Bible, but more than that. I’m talking about the Word that John talks about. He’s got a lot to say about this Word, starting with the bold statement that the Word and God are one and the same. Let’s follow that thread a bit. If our words stem from our hearts, then it’s easy to see how God’s words stem from His heart. How much more, then, does the Word flow out of God’s own heart? If the smallest of God’s words create life then THE WORD must be life itself, a message from the center of His heart communicated to us.
Pause and ponder if you will. The power of God’s words all wrapped up in a single Word. And that Word becomes flesh.
Whew.
But John is just getting started.
The Purpose of God
John writes his gospel to both Jewish and Gentile believers to bolster their faith in the power of Jesus Christ. He does this by detailing seven of Jesus’ miracles increasing in power from changing water to wine to raising Lazarus from the dead. He tops it all off with Jesus’ own Resurrection. From the moment he dips his pen into ink, John definitely has the power of God in mind.
The Greek word that John uses for “word” in his first chapter is “logos” and it’s a culturally loaded term in his day. “Logos” means message, referring to the meaning of words as opposed to the physical form of words on paper (”graphe”) or the message received and understood (”rhema”). Both Jews and Gentiles have baggage associated with the term “logos,” and John knows it.
To the Jews, the Logos referred to the coming Messiah. At the time of John’s writing, most Jews read Aramaic instead of the Hebrew of the Old Testament, so they read from Scriptures translated into the language of their day, much like we read from our English Bibles. The Aramaic translation of John’s day is known as the Targum, and it translates a specific prophecy from Deuteronomy about the Messiah in an interesting way:
Ye have appointed the word of God a king of you this day that he may be your God (Deuteronomy 26:17 from the Targum, emphasis mine)
So God-fearing Jews in the First Century associated the Word with the Messiah, the coming anointed king to bring peace and prosperity to God’s people forever. And John knew it. So when Jews heard John’s word about the Word, they heard the bombshell drop. The Messiah had come not only FROM God but He WAS God.
Now, John would have also gotten the immediate attention of his Greek-minded Gentile audience with the same Word. His gospel first appears in the Greek city of Ephesus where, like a lot of Greek cities, philosophers gathered to exchange ideas and theories about everything you can imagine. One question they loved to debate was, “What is the Logos?” By this, they meant, “What is the purpose and meaning of life, the Word that all men should live by?” Certainly, lots of people had lots of ideas and plenty of interest in finding an answer.
And here comes John into the middle of it all to say that the Word, the Logos, is God and has become a man of flesh and blood. This man, full of grace and truth, is the meaning and purpose of life.
Boom!
What would it have been like to be among the first to hear John’s gospel? I suppose that those who already believed in Jesus and heard the stories weren’t all that shocked. But to a non-believing Jew or Gentile, John’s words might have shorted out a few brain circuits. Messiah has already come? Blasphemy! A human being, a man, is the meaning of life? Preposterous! John’s statements would have been so bold in his day that people would have either dismissed him as insane or leaned in to learn more because he would only say something that crazy if it were true. John leaves no room for middle ground. This is no poetic metaphor that sounds pretty as a prologue to his story about Jesus. John is a Son of Thunder, remember? And he lowers the boom with the simple declaration.
The Word became flesh to dwell among us.
The Power and the Purpose of God has become a Person.
That’s what we celebrate at Christmas. Everything represented in the creative powers of light and life has been condensed into baby boy flesh. The Messiah and the meaning of existence have been translated into Someone tangible. You’d think it impossible to contain or immensely brilliant and glorious, but He doesn’t come to us that way. As the ultimate communication from God’s heart to ours, He speaks Himself into the most humble and approachable form possible. He’s the newborn son of a poor tradesman and his wife and he’s accessible to everyone including those dirty and smelly shepherds who had been tending their flocks nearby.
That’s God’s way. He’s always coming towards us, translating Himself into our existence and calling out to us. He does it through His spoken and then written Word in our Bibles, not demanding that we learn a divine language to understand Him but accommodating human tongues. As the Word made flesh, he comes even further not just to be heard heard but held by human hands. It’s a wonder and a miracle beyond anything we could have imagined.
The Word became flesh to dwell among us in the Person of Jesus Christ. And when He was born, God said to us all “I am here. I love you. I am for you. I am with you. That is my Name - Immanuel.”
Whatever the crazies are for us this season, I hope we can still hear the Word spoken to us again this Christmas. Above the din of busy-ness and the cacophony of needs surrounding us, could we tune our ears to hear the sound of the Word as a baby crying in His mother’s arms? Will we let our hearts explode with the detonating truth that the purpose of life - Life Himself - comes to live as one of us, and then choose to die for all of us?
This Word matters more than all other words combined. More power. More meaning.
The Messiah.
The Logos.
The power and the purpose of God have become a Person.
This is the Word.