The Word Made Flesh – Christmas Sermon 25 December, 2012

The Word Made Flesh

John 1:1-14

There is an amazing piece of art done by a Korean. It took him two years to complete the scroll. The artist meticulously drew the picture by hand with a very fine tipped pen. It is not a painting, but a picture created by writing thousands of words with shaded letters. It is actually the entire New Testament written out by hand. There are about 185,000 words on the scroll with an average of a thousand words per line. The letters are drawn; some thick and some thin so that they bring out a picture of Christ. There are twenty-seven angels surrounding Christ and looking to him, representing the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. The original work was six feet long by four feet wide. The figure of Christ is not imposed onto the words; the words reveal the picture of Christ as they are inked light and dark to bring out the portrait of Christ. The words have become flesh, a person. If you would magnify a portion of the work, such as Christ’s hand, you could actually read the words. The message of the artist is that the New Testament reveals one thing — the person of Jesus Christ. Out of the Word arises The Word — Jesus Christ — the Word which became flesh.

The most important words in the entire Bible are these: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (14). This is the great truth that sets Christianity apart from all other world religions. Our God came to us in person. He did not just write us a letter. He did not just send us a representative. He did not just speak his laws from a mountain. He came to us as one of us. The Infinite became an infant. The Bible describes the miracle of what Christ has done when it says: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Ph. 2:6-8). A new translation of the Bible called The Message puts it this way: “He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.”

There is so much that could be said and so many points that could be made, but first of all let me say, God’s coming in human form is important because:

It reveals the heart of God. God’s appearance in human form on the earth speaks volumes about God’s love for us. You are familiar with the words, which are perhaps so familiar that we take them for granted: “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). Here is the best news in all the world — God deeply cares for us. He has made a plan to save us from our sin and ourselves. He wants to change our lives and give us a life worth living that will ultimately result in eternal life. This is the kind of God we serve. He loves us more than we will ever know. God came, even though he knew the consequences. He was willing to come even if it meant that the Almighty and Eternal One had to experience pain and death — so great was his love for us. He came so that he might share the human condition and take our burdens upon himself. He experienced what we experienced, walked where we have walked, and eased the pain of life. He is willing to place our suffering and pain on his own back.

Secondly, it reveals the need of people. God dressed himself as one of us and entered our world. He joined us because we were held hostage to sin and in danger of spiritual death. He rescued us from eternal danger. Imagine, God, who could have crushed the world because of its sin, came into the world to be crushed for our sin. The very One who said that everyone who sinned would die, came to the world to die in our place. He both pronounced the judgment and took the judgment upon himself. We did not even understand the danger we were in. We were too ignorant and stubborn to ask for his help, but he came to save us from that danger anyway. The Bible says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8). This is an incredible mystery, and an incredible story of love.

Thirdly, it reveals the mystery of God’s plan. The Bible speaks of the mystery of God’s plan with these words: “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16). Here is the mystery. We could not have imagined it or guessed it in a million years. He had to reveal his plan to us. The Creator of the universe comes to the rebellious world which he has created in love. He avoids nothing: hunger, sleeplessness, thirst, pain, suffering or death. He comes to die in the place of those who deserve to die. He suffers for those who deserve to suffer. He comes as a King, but is seen as human refuse. John says: “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:10-11).

But here is the mystery which God kept hidden until the world was ready: The world deserved to be destroyed because of its sin, but God would come disguised as an ordinary man and die in the place of the world’s people in order to take away their sin. God had allowed animals to die as substitutes and sacrifices under the Old Covenant. It was a temporary solution. But animals could not atone for the sins of a human being. It would have to be a man who would die in our place, as our representative. But not just any man. Not even a priest. It had to be a perfect man. There was only one such man — the man Jesus Christ. A real man, for the Bible says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). Here is the Word made flesh — God becoming a real man so that he would experience what it was to be human. He was God, for the Bible says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). But he was also fully human, for the Bible says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

When John says in his Gospel that “the Word became flesh,” he used a Greek word with which those in that culture were familiar. It was the word logos. In Greek philosophy logos was the rational principle that gave order to the universe. This abstract principle became equated with God. But the abstract word becoming a word would do the world little good. The world was full of words already. John used the word logos to say that this divine power became real flesh and blood. If the Word became word then we would have the Scripture, but not a real person who could make the Scripture come alive. But this Word became flesh. He came out of the words of Scripture so that we would have more than a prophecy or a moral code, we would have God himself standing among us — Emmanuel.

What other religion do you know whose God comes in person to die for his people? Buddha did not claim to be God, nor did he claim to have come from God. He was in search of the divine principle — the word become word. And neither did Mohammed claim to be God, only a prophet of God and author of the Koran. In all other world religions we have the word become word — a verbal revelation: writings, injunctions and moral codes. Only in Christianity does the Word become flesh. Even the Jews have only the word becoming word — the prophets and the law of Moses. In Jesus Christ, God did not just reveal his will or his laws, he revealed himself. Nothing less would do. If the Word only became word then our contact with God would only be intellectual. But the Word has become flesh, and now he is personal. The Word is standing in front of us and he is calling our name. As we read the Bible we are not just acquiring knowledge, Jesus begins to emerge from the Scripture, much like he does in the picture by the Korean artist. Suddenly, we are reading more than words, we are experiencing a person. Something real is happening. More than our thinking is being affected; we are being touched and changed at the deepest place of our beings. It is not an idea (the Word) coming into our heads, it is one person communicating with another person (flesh). The Scriptures come alive, because the Word has become flesh. Jesus steps out of the pages and into our lives.

This is what Jesus has done for us. The Word became flesh. The King of heaven put aside his heavenly robes and divine privileges and rights. He came to us as one of us. He lived among us; ate with us; drank with us; felt with us — all to win our love. He could have forced us. He could have overwhelmed us, but he chose to romance us. He stands here today with the smile of love and arms extended. He is the God who became real so that we could experience his transforming love. Jesus is not just a truth to believe in, he is a person to be experienced.

Krikor Youmshajekian