The Word Made Flesh

(Genesis 2:4b-9; John 1:1-14; 20:24-29)

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

If you were allowed just ten words to say what the Christian faith is about, which words would you choose? Not easy. If it were me, I would go for the first part of John 1:14: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ And that’s not even ten. It’s eight.

Perhaps the greatest of the early church theologians, St Augustine, agrees. Augustine was a brilliant scholar deeply schooled in the considerable wisdom, both Greek and Roman, of his time. Reflecting on his personal journey to faith in Christ, especially his reading of the Bible, Augustine remarked that many of the things he read about in scripture: God as creator of the universe, the work of the divine Spirit in the world, the nature of the moral law, the ambiguity of human nature as body but also spirit: all these things he had met in one form or another in secular literature. But this claim he had not come across elsewhere: ‘The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us’. That claim, for Augustine, was what was startlingly and new about the gospel.

And it remains startling now. God, or to be a bit more precise, the Son of God, becomes flesh. God takes on this reality, this body, this flesh. Our reality, our body, our flesh. God lives it with us and alongside us; with all that that means for good possibilities and bad; for life and joy; and for torture and death. Everything. That, said Augustine, is a new and radical thing to say about God. God becomes human. And that is a new and radical thing to say about us. Our human-ness is taken up into God.

The early church had a battle royal over this text and others like it in the NT. Just because it is so affronting. On the one hand, there were critics who said, ‘look, God did come near to us in Jesus; but Jesus wasn’t really flesh as we are. God appeared in a form that looked human, but underneath it was a spiritual not fleshly substance. For how can God become flesh when flesh is frail, mortal, and finite, and God is powerful, deathless and infinite? It’s a contradiction. Jesus was truly God. But he wasn’t truly flesh.’

On the other hand, there were those who said, ‘O yes, Jesus is one of us alright. He was fully human. But—taking the opposite solution from the first group,—they argued, he was not really God. Jesus was a very, very good man, and lived a very, very godly life. He was truly flesh. But he wasn’t truly God. That’s a contradiction.’

The early church, through people like Augustine, fought a life and death struggle to hold on to both. Jesus is truly God and truly human, the Word made flesh, in one and the same person. That has been the orthodox faith of the church ever since.

As such, it has some really important implications for our understanding of the world and God. And in this series on “Incarnation: faith lived in the flesh” we want to explore some of these in detail. But let me take just a couple of steps now.

That God has taken our flesh in Christ means that God affirms, honours, blesses and sanctifies our being by his presence within it. So bodies, this reality, have a sacredness about them that needs acknowledgement and respect. For Christian faith, ‘matter matters’, to quote Paul Collins’ famous remark. Our spirituality, our walk with God , with each other, and in the world, is not a disembodied walk, but very much an embodied walk.

If we look back to the story of creation we find the same thing. According to our Genesis reading, God created human beings from the dust of the earth. Literally, God made us earthlings. Our bodies come from and return to the earth. We are part of the whole wonderful physico-spiritual reality of earth. This is our way, because it is God’s way. And in our times, knowing something of the amazing story of the origins and development of the universe through 15 billion years, we also know that the stuff of our solar system originates in the explosion of stars. Thus in being created from the dust of the earth, we are at the same time created from stardust.

So in creation and in incarnation God makes us an integral part of God’s wondrous creation, all of it. We belong to it. We share its character. And we inherit the destiny that God has in store for it. A whole ecological theology is contained in this understanding.

Which brings me to the other gospel reading: the resurrection of Jesus and Thomas’ doubts about it. In taking our flesh in Jesus, God reveals his intended destiny for the world. Again it has to do with incarnation. It is resurrection of the body. But Thomas can’t believe that through death Jesus is brought again to concrete, real life. ‘Unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails’, that is unless I can affirm the solidity of this thing, I won’t believe’, he says. And Jesus comes and says, ‘here Thomas touch me …’ Touch me.

In understanding God’s action in creation, God’s presence with us in Christ, and God’s destiny for the world in resurrection, Christian faith reveres the body-quality of life. Of course we are spiritual beings; but we live as embodied spirits, as enfleshed souls. Our incarnate life is made, blessed, redeemed and given eternal value by God and for God. ‘The Word became flesh and lived among us’.

In the next few weeks we want to explore a little of what this means practically. And we will do so by looking at aspects of our bodily life; and particularly the five main senses that God has given us: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Our knowledge of the world, of each other, and of God comes to us in large part through these sensual doorways. For the most part, we take them for granted, of course. And fair enough. Our senses are the media through which we live in the world. But if something goes wrong with one or other of these doorways: when hearing is impaired, or taste and smell are taken from us; if we lose our sight; or our sense of touch is diminished, we discover how dependent we are on these gifts; and how our participation in life is diminished when these doorways cease to operate or function only partially.

I will finish by drawing attention to two things. First, how often scripture refers to the five senses as doorways through which we have access to God. I’ll simply illustrate this. We’ll go into detail later.

Hearing, the words of Paul: “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from the word of Christ.’ (Rom. 10:17). Whatever faith is, it is also a matter of the ear.

Seeing, the words of Job: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God … and my eyes shall see and behold, and not another.” (Job 19:25-26). Whatever redemption is, it is also a matter of the eye.

Tasting, the words of the Paul: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (I Cor. 11:26). Whatever witness to Christ is, it is also a matter of taste.

Touching, the words of Luke: a woman suffering from a terrible blood disorder “came up behind [Jesus] and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Then Jesus asked. ‘Who touched me?’” (Luke 8:46). Whatever healing is in faith, it is also a matter of touch.

And smelling, [this doorway is slightly harder to track than the others], but Paul again: “For we [meaning the community of faith] are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved …” (2 Cor. 2:15). What an image! the church as the ‘aroma of Christ’ to God in the world. Whatever the church is, it is also the scent of God in society.

Second, I want to note how much of Jesus’ ministry as reported in the Gospels has to do with his care, concern, protection and healing of people who were suffering from an impairment of one or other of the five senses.

A blind beggar at the gate of the city of Jericho receives his sight from Jesus after calling out long and hard to him over the crowd. (Mark10:46-52).

 A man from the city of Decapolis who, as a consequence of deafness, could not speak, retrieves both his hearing and speech from the hand of Jesus. (Mark 7: 31-37).

Ten lepers from a village near Samaria who had lost the ability to feel in almost every limb of their bodies, appeal to Jesus and their flesh is healed, the ability to touch and be touched is given back to them to their astonished delight. (Luke 17:7-17).

And the hungry, who longed for the taste and the scent of decent food, look to Jesus to share his meals with them. And he did, to the disapproval of many of the righteous. Jesus’ first miracle at Canaan of Galilee, was to turn water into wine of a quality that astonished the host, who, unaware of the drama going on in the background, exclaimed to the bridal couple, “why have you kept this ‘good wine until now.’?!” And so on and so on.

‘The Word became flesh and lived among us.’ God grant us grace to ‘behold his glory’ and learn to celebrate and live out its implications in our lives and our mission in the world.

Graeme Garrett

Canberra Baptist Church

Transfiguration Sunday

6^th March 2011