A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .
the word made flesh
John 1:10-18, Preached at Congregational
A
philosopher once had the following dream. First Aristotle appeared, and the
philosopher said to him, "Could you give me a fifteen-minute capsule sketch of
your entire philosophy?" To the philosopher's surprise, Aristotle gave him an
excellent exposition in which he compressed an enormous amount of material into
a mere fifteen minutes. But then the philosopher raised a certain objection
which Aristotle couldn't answer. Confounded, Aristotle disappeared. Then Plato
appeared. The same thing happened again, and the philosophers` objection to
Plato was the same as his objection to Aristotle. Plato also couldn't answer it
and disappeared. Then all the famous philosophers of history appeared one-by-one
and our philosopher refuted every one with the same objection. After the last
philosopher vanished, our philosopher said to himself, "I know I'm asleep and
dreaming all this. Yet I've found a universal refutation for all philosophical
systems! Tomorrow when I wake up, I will probably have forgotten it, and the
world will really miss something!" With an iron effort, the philosopher forced
himself to wake up, rush over to his desk, and write down his universal
refutation. Then he jumped back into bed with a sigh of relief. The next morning
when he awoke, he went over to the desk to see what he had written. It was, "Oh,
yeah. That's what you say."
Down through
the ages the main question for most philosophies and religions has been, "What
do we do with our flesh?" Plato gave birth to philosophy by saying you can think
your way out of the flesh. You can, through philosophical contemplation, rise
above your lower nature. Now, why would you want to? Well, said Plato, because
what's real is not this stuff, but the Idea world beyond this one. So close your
eyes, get comfortable, and think your way toward the real world, a place for
which our world is only a flickering shadow.
A similar
drive may be behind today's infatuation with "spirituality." So many times in so
many different ways contemporary thinkers and artists try to convince us that
spiritual disciplines (higher thinking) can help us to climb out of the
muck-and-mire of the material world, and rise up to a higher, more spiritual
realm. Here’s just one example: think about the movie “The Matrix” (a movie I
really enjoy). The hero in that movie, Neo, has to realize that the physical
does not necessarily control him. What seems real isn’t. There’s a higher,
real world to be had, and to reach it he has to escape from the computer
generated program that is the matrix, that makes up our so-called "real"
world. The point is made: forget about the false flesh, escape its limitations,
and then you can start flying through the sky and dodging bullets; it’s an
almost universal fantasy, to fly from this stuff and become godlike.
But if we are
really listening to the Christmas story, really listening to John's beautiful
words, this isn't how it really is at all.
Now before we go any
further, I want to say that this Word made flesh theology, also called
Incarnation theology, comes from the Gospel according to John, where it shows up
in the Prologue, the famous first verses that begin, "In the beginning was the
Word...." One of the challenges in first generation Christianity was to
communicate the idea of Jesus to a group of people who had no connection to
Judaism. To the Jews, the concept of a Messiah was powerful. But to the Greeks,
it meant little or nothing. So how do you talk about the coming of the Messiah
to folks who don’t know what that means? John is trying to convey the idea of
Jesus to a Greek audience, and he is putting it into their terms. While the
Greeks might not understand the Messiah, they do understand the idea of “logos.”
“Logos” in Greek means reason or mind and that idea carried a lot of meaning in
Greek culture. So when John writes that the “logos” was with God and the “logos”
was God, he’s making a statement to the Greeks. When he says “the logos became
flesh and dwelt among us,” he’s saying to them that what made God God, that by
which God made the universe and all things in it, became a person. The Divine
Word was born and lived.
Now I know we have to make
a big leap of faith when we consider the resurrection, but clearly we must make
as large of a jump at our faith's beginning with the incarnation. John's Gospel
doesn't wait until the end to focus our attention on the glorious impossible
possible on which our faith is anchored. From its very first moment, Christian
faith emerges straight from God, straight from the miraculous and divine. We may
cut off the bookends, the first and the last, the Word became flesh and Christ
was raised from the dead anchors of Christianity and make a more reasonable
religion, but it will struggle to say and do what the Christian faith can when
it rises to its full height. What above all our faith says is that nothing has
the power to stop God from reaching us and pulling us to himself. As Paul said
it, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
So even if you can't
believe with your head, embrace faith with your heart. It's the heart that
accepts still the mystery and wonder of God and life. Not once in all of human
history did God ever convince an individual to believe by persuading the mind.
The surest way to a person's faith is through the heart.
One of the greatest
journalists of the last generation, the late Bernard Levin, described how, when
he was a small boy, a great celebrity came to visit his school. The headmaster,
thinking perhaps to impress, called the young Levin to the platform in front of
the whole school. The celebrity,
thinking perhaps to be kind, asked the little boy what he’d had for breakfast.
That was easy, or so it seemed. "Matzobrei," replied Levin. Matzobrei is a
typical central European Jewish dish, made of egg fried with matzo wafers, brown
sugar and cinnamon; Levin’s immigrant mother had continued to make it even after
years of living in
John’s gospel isn’t about
Jesus speaking the truth and everyone saying "Of course! Why didn’t we realize
it before?" It is about God shining his clear, bright torch into the darkness of
our world, our lives, our hearts, our imaginations, and the darkness not
comprehending it. It’s about God, God-as-a-little-child, speaking the word of
truth, and nobody knowing what he’s talking about.
The Word came to us
but the world didn't accept it; the world is made through him but the world
doesn't know him; he came to his own, and his own didn’t receive him. Jesus is
born into a world where everyone is deaf and blind to him and what he’s saying;
but there is grace, and those who allow his words to challenge, rescue, heal and
transform them, those who allow his ministry to include them, those who desire
another better and purer will to guide theirs, will find themselves born and
living to a new way. As John writes, "As many as received him, to them he gave
the right to become God’s children, who were born not of human will or flesh,
but of God." So we shouldn't
imagine that the world divides naturally into those who can understand what
Jesus is saying that those who can’t. By ourselves, none of us can. The truth
is, by nature we simply refuse to believe Christ or anyone else for that matter
should come first; we refuse to step forward in God's service. By nature we want
to serve self because we see no beauty in Christ Jesus and no truth in his
words. But once we fall under Divine influence, once grace opens our heart and
we hear Christ's word as Word of Life, then we seek to put first things first,
God's will before ours, service before self,
and compassion before carelessness.
So pray for grace.
Ask the Lord to send his Spirit that the heart may believe. Listen for God's
word, and follow it forward. There is still more life and light yet to break
forth from God's Word.
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