If Words Become Flesh
Sermon
In Enid Blyton's wonderful children's book, “The Land of Far Beyond” (re-published by Element Books in 1998, ISBN 1901881229), based on John Bunyan's Christian classic "Pilgrim's Progress", all sorts of qualities are human beings. Thus there's Mr Scornful, and Giant Cruel, and Miss Silly, and Envy and Jealousy and Malice, and Comfort with her sister Cheerful, and so on. The children who are heroes of the story all carry heavy packs on their backs, which are somehow part of them and can't be removed. The packs are the manifestation of all the bad things they have thought and done. The children are on a journey to the Land of Far Beyond, where they've been told they can get rid of their packs. And all the people they meet personify some sort of human characteristic, like Mr Doubt, and Lord Arrogance and Laziness and Sloth.
It's an exciting adventure tale, in which the children have to battle against most of these people, but are helped by some. Eventually they reach the Land of Far Beyond, only to discover they can't enter the City of Happiness because no-one wearing a pack may enter. For anyone carrying a load of badness can't be truly happy, and so has no place in the city. They're saved by meeting The Stranger, who initiated their journey in the first place, and who takes all their packs from them, and carries them himself. The Stranger, of course, is Jesus.
The thought of human characteristics being personified, is quite sobering. Imagine meeting Greed or Selfishness or Mr Fearful or Miss Grumble down in Waitrose (our local supermarket)! Plenty of us exhibit some of these characteristics at various times, but at least we're a mixture of good and bad. It's difficult to imagine anybody who is pure greed or selfishness or whatever.
In the prologue to his gospel, John has personified God's breath or his speech. Picking up on the beginning of pre-history, related in the early chapters of Genesis, and using a Greek idea which was around in the Hellenistic community of his time, John refers to Jesus as the Word of God.
Back in Genesis, in the beginning whenever God spoke something happened. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters!” And it happened. And so on, culminating in “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And so the very first human being was produced by God's words, and was a sort of copy of God with some of God's characteristics, although clearly Adam was not a clone!
Now, in this new beginning in the New Testament, God's message is even more dramatic. This time, God's speech is Jesus Christ. This particular human being, Jesus, is God's communication to us, God's special message. He is the Word of God, and has all God's characteristics.
He is pure goodness. He is so good that to hear him is to hear God speaking, to look at him is to look at God, to talk with him is to talk with God. Just as Enid Blyton personified all sorts of evil characteristics in her children's novel, so the Word of God is the personification of all the goodness which issues from God.
God has spoken since the beginning of time, and therefore, John argues, if the Christ is God's Word, then the Christ has been there since the beginning of time too. But this is a new time, because now the Christ is coming into the world as a person. The Word is personified. The Christ is incarnated within a human being, Jesus. The Word has been “made flesh.”
But strangely enough, the world didn't recognise Jesus as God's Word, and his own people rejected him. Although Jesus was so different, was so God-like that he shone as a beacon in a dark world, nonetheless few people recognised him as God. Perhaps the idea of God actually living amongst them was too unfamiliar even to be acknowledged.
But it seems odd that human beings are content to rub along with those displaying all sorts of unsavoury characteristics, but are unwilling to live alongside God. It seems odd that human beings are unable to recognise God. Or perhaps human beings simply feel very uncomfortable in the presence of pure goodness, and are so unused to pure goodness that they find it difficult to recognise.
Nothing has changed! Still many people are unable to recognise Jesus as God on earth, and even more are unable to recognise him in other people. And yet he said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Happily, there were those in the first century, and there are those today, who do recognise him. The God within us connects in a very deep and powerful way with the God within Jesus, and those who open their spiritual eyes and ears are able to see and recognise that God.
And the God within all these people is able to develop and expand so that these people can reach their full potential, just as Jesus reached his full potential. St. John describes it like this: 'But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.'
St. John also said: 'No one has ever seen God.' But we have seen Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, and that means we've seen the human face of God, God on earth. For it is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
Perhaps in this new year, in this new beginning for all of us, we shall God more and more in other people too.
It's an exciting adventure tale, in which the children have to battle against most of these people, but are helped by some. Eventually they reach the Land of Far Beyond, only to discover they can't enter the City of Happiness because no-one wearing a pack may enter. For anyone carrying a load of badness can't be truly happy, and so has no place in the city. They're saved by meeting The Stranger, who initiated their journey in the first place, and who takes all their packs from them, and carries them himself. The Stranger, of course, is Jesus.
The thought of human characteristics being personified, is quite sobering. Imagine meeting Greed or Selfishness or Mr Fearful or Miss Grumble down in Waitrose (our local supermarket)! Plenty of us exhibit some of these characteristics at various times, but at least we're a mixture of good and bad. It's difficult to imagine anybody who is pure greed or selfishness or whatever.
In the prologue to his gospel, John has personified God's breath or his speech. Picking up on the beginning of pre-history, related in the early chapters of Genesis, and using a Greek idea which was around in the Hellenistic community of his time, John refers to Jesus as the Word of God.
Back in Genesis, in the beginning whenever God spoke something happened. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters!” And it happened. And so on, culminating in “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And so the very first human being was produced by God's words, and was a sort of copy of God with some of God's characteristics, although clearly Adam was not a clone!
Now, in this new beginning in the New Testament, God's message is even more dramatic. This time, God's speech is Jesus Christ. This particular human being, Jesus, is God's communication to us, God's special message. He is the Word of God, and has all God's characteristics.
He is pure goodness. He is so good that to hear him is to hear God speaking, to look at him is to look at God, to talk with him is to talk with God. Just as Enid Blyton personified all sorts of evil characteristics in her children's novel, so the Word of God is the personification of all the goodness which issues from God.
God has spoken since the beginning of time, and therefore, John argues, if the Christ is God's Word, then the Christ has been there since the beginning of time too. But this is a new time, because now the Christ is coming into the world as a person. The Word is personified. The Christ is incarnated within a human being, Jesus. The Word has been “made flesh.”
But strangely enough, the world didn't recognise Jesus as God's Word, and his own people rejected him. Although Jesus was so different, was so God-like that he shone as a beacon in a dark world, nonetheless few people recognised him as God. Perhaps the idea of God actually living amongst them was too unfamiliar even to be acknowledged.
But it seems odd that human beings are content to rub along with those displaying all sorts of unsavoury characteristics, but are unwilling to live alongside God. It seems odd that human beings are unable to recognise God. Or perhaps human beings simply feel very uncomfortable in the presence of pure goodness, and are so unused to pure goodness that they find it difficult to recognise.
Nothing has changed! Still many people are unable to recognise Jesus as God on earth, and even more are unable to recognise him in other people. And yet he said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Happily, there were those in the first century, and there are those today, who do recognise him. The God within us connects in a very deep and powerful way with the God within Jesus, and those who open their spiritual eyes and ears are able to see and recognise that God.
And the God within all these people is able to develop and expand so that these people can reach their full potential, just as Jesus reached his full potential. St. John describes it like this: 'But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.'
St. John also said: 'No one has ever seen God.' But we have seen Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, and that means we've seen the human face of God, God on earth. For it is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
Perhaps in this new year, in this new beginning for all of us, we shall God more and more in other people too.
