God in The Flesh
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Intro
In the movie Thor, the super hero of the same name is also a god. His father banishes him from his home to earth, and when he first arrives on earth, he is confused and repeatedly yells up into the sky, “Father!” As people begin to gather around him, they assume he is threatening, and one of them shoots him with a taser. Unexpectedly for Thor, this manages to render him unconscious (directed by Kenneth Branagh [Paramount Studios, 2011]). As amusing as the scene is, it also illustrates the dilemma of talking about the incarnation: we just don’t have anything else quite like it to convey what occurred. The incarnation is the formal word used to describe the action of God taking on human flesh as Jesus. This is the second week of our four-week series on Advent. We’re spending this time looking at the first chapter in John to prepare ourselves for an encounter with God. Last week we looked at how the one who entered this world was God: Jesus was fully divine. This week we will consider the flip side of the incarnation: that God entered this world. What does it mean that God took on flesh, and as John puts it, “dwelt among us” (John 1:14)?
John1:14 says,
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.
If you recall from last week, the Word is God (v. 1).
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
But here in verse 14, we also learn that the divine Word becomes human. He “dwelt among us.” The word for “dwelt” in the Greek is skēnoō and is the verb form of “tabernacle” A fair paraphrase of John 1:14 would be “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” or “pitched his tent among us.”
By using this word, John is giving us a very clear picture of what it meant that God dwelt among people in the flesh. The tabernacle’s main purpose was to provide a physical manifestation of God’s holiness on earth. The layout of the tabernacle, the contents, the vessels and furniture, even the material of it—all of this hearkened back to some element of God’s character and humanity’s need to approach the holy cautiously and respectfully.
It was also the place where humanity could come to God in worship. As the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery states, “In this way the author of the Gospel intends us to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the tabernacle. God is indeed present among men and women!”
This act of tabernacling among us is a gift from God. It is, you could say, the first gift of Christmas.
And it is a gift that comes with additional presents. Like a Christmas present which you open and discover is filled with treasures, so too God’s presence among us gives us many blessings.
First, it lets us see the glory of God. This is not an insignificant gift! What did Moses, the biblical figure who had the best relationship with God, ask God for?
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
When Isaiah is given a vision of heaven, Isaiah 6
Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
the seraphim continually declare the holiness of God, but with their eyes covered (Isaiah 6:2).
Yet John declares that when the Word took on flesh, when Jesus was born, we beheld the glory of 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.
Not only does John 1 tell us that in Jesus we can behold the glory of God and live, but we are also given a description of this glory: it is a gracious glory. It is “full of grace and truth. ...For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
If we continue in John we learn a bit more
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:14, 16–17).
Grace, the free and undeserved gift of God’s love toward us, isn’t easy to receive. But it is a significant gift where God tells us, through Jesus, that we’re right with him and can give up the struggle of “being good.” He sent his Son to die for our sins and to free us to live for him.
One of the tropes of the season is Santa and his list. Right....he’s making a list and .......
In this season of lists of the naughty and nice, it is good for our soul to remember that God has no such list. As Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “Bookkeeping is the only punishable offense in the kingdom of heaven. For in that happy state, the books are ignored forever, and there is only the Book of life. And in that book, nothing stands against you. There are no debit entries that can keep you out of the clutches of the Love that will not let you go. There is no minimum balance below which the grace that finagles all accounts will cancel your credit. And there is, of course, no need for you to show large amounts of black ink, because the only Auditor before whom you must finally stand is the Lamb—and he has gone deaf, dumb, and blind on the cross. ... For if the world could have been saved by bookkeeping, it would have been saved by Moses, not Jesus” (Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002], 396).
Moses gave us the Law, but Jesus gave us grace—and that is something we need all year long!