The Great Mystery of the Incarnation

Introduction

Each Christmas Eve I listen to the Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge, broadcast on the BBC. They read nine “lessons” or scripture passages, interspersed with Christmas hymns that tell the story of the gospel. From Genesis 3 (the Fall) to Genesis 22 (the covenant with Abraham) the gospel story unfolds. Through the prophecies of Isaiah 9 and 11 and the fulfillment in Luke 1 and 2 and Matthew 2, the story rolls forward. Finally, the last reader stands up and reads John 1:1-14, “St John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation”.

This passage unfolds the core of the gospel for us and shows us more clearly perhaps than any other Scripture what stands precisely at the very centre of the gospel of Jesus Christ: the incarnation of God appearing in human flesh.

The Text

Walk through the text with me, and then we will ask what this passage says to us in the context of the study you have undertaken of looking at the religions of the world.

Verses 1-3: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John intentionally echoes Genesis 1. I remember studying Hebrew many years ago with Millard Lind. First he had us open our Hebrew Bibles and begin to sound out the first sentence. Soon we had memorized the first verses:
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ:

Bereshit bara Elohim et ha shamayin ve et ha aretz.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

We are so used to hearing these verses that we don’t realize how incredible, how amazing they are. As we studied Genesis, Millard assigned us to read the creation stories of other nations in the ancient Near East. I read the Babylonian creation story (the Enuma Elish): The god Marduk fought with the goddess Tiamat (representing chaos) and killed her. He divided her body in two, which made the earth and the sky, and from her blood made the first humans. A gory and bloodthirsty story. In the Egyptian creation stories we read, creation of the earth and of people and animals came primarily through sexual activity. (I assume you prefer a G-rated sermon, so I will say no more!) I remember my sense of surprise as I read and wondered how one could worship these gods. The stories were designed primarily to prove that Babylon or Thebes (or wherever) was the centre of the earth, and that their god was the chief god.

After we read these different creation stories, we came back to Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Simple, elegant, clear: God spoke the word, and it was so. As John puts it, “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word creates and gives life.

Verses 4-5: In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Word that gives life also gives light. We live because God, the Word made us. We see how to live because God, the Word, shines on us and in us.

The note of conflict between light and darkness reminds us that we are, as C.S. Lewis puts it, living in occupied territory:

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. [From Mere Christianity.]

This conflict is a basic element in our understanding of various religions in this world. Some people see these religions as demonic and think that our conflict is with them. I suggest rather that religions in general (including Christianity) are human efforts to find God. We are in conflict with darkness, with the Prince of Darkness, who is active in every part of our world, including the religious bits. In the incarnation of Jesus, we have God’s light shining into the darkness of Satan’s rule, driving the darkness back and showing us the way back to God.

Verses 6-13: There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and 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. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

John the Baptist came to show people “the true light”, that is, Jesus. We see again that this light is our path back to God. John tells us that this Word, who is also the Light of the World, made the world and owns the world, including the people to whom he came. But “the world”, his own world, refused to accept him.

This narrative sets up the great affirmation of the possibility that God has made for us in “The Word”: All who receive [Jesus] also receive the right to become “children of God”. This statement parallels the great affirmation that Jesus makes later in the gospel of John, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Sometimes we use this verse to argue that Christianity is the only way to God. That is not what John says, either in 1:12 or in 14:6. He says that Jesus is the only way. Not the church, not our religion, not any human path, but only Jesus.

This verse is also behind the claim that Bruxy Cavey (pastor of the Meeting House in Oakville, Ontario) is supposed to have made: “Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is a relationship.”

[Note: Bruxy is stressing the priority of relationship over religious system; of course, Christianity is a religion, but life – real life in God – is a relationship with God.]

This is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions: God came in human flesh to make us God’s children, a part of God’s family with Jesus as our older brother. I come from the Brethren in Christ Church. We struggle with the gender implications of “brethren”, but our name in Zimbabwe gets it right: “Abazalwane baka Kristu” – “those who come from the same womb in Christ.” We are God’s family, God’s children, saved and held by God’s eternal love. So we come to the critical verse, the great affirmation of the incarnation.

Verse 14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This is the heart of the Christian faith. God became human and lived with people. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who lived about 2000 years ago. Physical Anthropologists (who reconstruct skeletons from bones) tell us that the average Jewish male at that time was about five feet tall. Contemporary records tell us that most men had short hair (compare Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11 about men’s and women’s hair). So Jesus would have looked to us like a short dark male, more like a First Nations man than like most of us here.

This reality is beyond our ability to understand it: God compressed into a human body; God living with people using their-our language and eating their-our food. This is something absolutely different from any other religion. Add to the general picture this reality: Jesus was born into a lower class family (although he was the descendant of kings) and lived in a marginalized area of the Jewish homeland. Remember that Nathaniel asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” This is worse than being called “yon-sied”!

Why did Jesus come? So that those who recognized and acknowledged God in human flesh should themselves also become “children of God.” So that you and I and everyone else in this world could be reconciled to God. The gospel is summarised best in John’s Gospel:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3: 16-17)

This is the gospel of love. We turned against God (“his own did not receive-accept him”). Death is the natural consequence of our rebellion. All of the problems that we see in our world grow out of this fundamental fact of human nature: We have turned against God and try to set ourselves in God’s place. The good news of the gospel is that God came in our flesh to die our death and give us new life. This gospel of love and forgiveness is unique to Christian faith, and it all flows out of “the great mystery of the incarnation.”

What Do We Do Today?

You have been looking at Christian faith and other religions of the world. The real question is not, “Which is better, Christianity or Islam-Hinduism-Buddhism-Secularism-and so on?” The real question is, “Have you met Jesus?” Jesus came into this world, God in the flesh, to bring us into relationship with God.

The growth of the church is a secondary issue. When people who are now God’s Children through the work of Jesus on the Cross come together, we form the church, but Jesus died to make us God’s Children, not to make the Winkler EMMC Church the biggest (or smallest) church in the West Reserve. When we meet someone who does not know Jesus, our desire is to introduce them to Jesus.

The church may be God’s instrument to introduce them to Jesus, but the point is that they meet Jesus. My wife and I have had several immigrant friends in Steinbach. I play soccer regularly with some Syrian Muslims. We became good friends with a couple from Bangladesh, also Muslim. There are other friends also – from a variety of religious backgrounds. We do not try to convert them. We do share Jesus openly. That means that our lives must already be walking with Jesus, so that our friends can see and hear Jesus in our interactions and conversations.

I teach World Religions at Providence. We compare religions and ask how they meet similar needs. We look at how Muslims deal with death ceremonies and compare it to the way that Hindus approach death. We ask how different religions respond to gender issues. This morning I am making a quite different point: I want to help everyone to meet Jesus.

Here in Winkler, as in Steinbach, we can be hospitable and welcoming to people who enter our community. We can invite them for meals. We can provide them with affordable rentals when housing is tight. Do you have a basement that you could spare? Consider using it to host someone from outside of Canada. When we live together, they see what is most important to us.

If they do not see Jesus when they live with you, then we have a different problem. We can become like my friend in Atlanta, Georgia. He plays indoor soccer regularly. He has never told his teammates that he is a Christian, but when these hard-drinking rough-speaking guys get in trouble, they come to him for spiritual help. Why? Because they see Jesus in him.

Conclusion

I want to bring our thoughts back to “the great mystery of the incarnation”. This past June my father died. He was 98 years old, living in Pennsylvania. Two weeks before he died, I visited him for his birthday. When I got back to Manitoba, my sister called me and said that Dad had been diagnosed with aspiration – with each swallow he took some fluid into his lungs, which meant that his lungs were filling up with fluid.

There is no treatment for this when the patient is 98. Dad made the decision to stop eating, which allowed his lungs to clear, but meant that he died from lack of nourishment. On Thursday, three days before he died, my sister was visiting him, and he told her a joke (a bad pun) about dying. It was a very old joke, for a very old man, and reassured us more than anything else could that he did not fear death. He was fine!

Then on Friday my sister visited again. She offered to read the Bible to him. He said, “Yes.” She said, “What shall I read?” “John.” “Which passage?” “Start at the beginning.” She did, just as we read this morning. Then she got to verse 14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Dad roused himself at this verse and exclaimed, “Isn’t that wonderful!”

Amen! This is wonderful and amazing. God became one of us and lived with us so that we can become “like God” and live forever with him. This is the very centre, the joy and crown, of our faith!

Winkler EMMC

26 Nov 2017

John 1: 1 to 14

The Word became flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.