The Word Became Flesh And Lived Among Us

CHRISTMAS EVE SERMON
I want to open by reading to you the opening passages from the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 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. 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.

Now unless you have a theology degree, that all may seem a bit confusing and like a lot of redundant talk.

But these first fourteen verses of the Gospel of John embody the essence of Christmas – of the light of the world breaking through the darkness of human despair and suffering and evil in the world. Of God becoming flesh and coming down into the world.



The NRSV translation we use says that the Word "lived among us." But that’s actually a very poor translation that does not capture the depth of what John is trying to tell us. The word in Greek actually means to "spread a tent" or "to tabernacle."

Now you’re probably going, "OK, Pastor Rebecca… so what on earth does THAT mean?" Well, if you know your history of the Israelites – and I know you all do…  the tabernacle was the portable sanctuary that the Israelites carried through the wilderness wherever they went.

It was essentially a tent that they carried around with them, and that portable tent or sanctuary was the place where God would come and meet with Moses to speak to the people and let his will be known to them. Because inside that tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant – the place God would come and sit and be present among His people.

So when John says that God became flesh and "tabernacled" among us – he’s referring back to how God was physically and really present with the Israelites in the wilderness. For God to come in the flesh and tabernacle among us means God now comes down to us in the flesh to be present with us in our wilderness – in our struggles, in our daily lives.

And we’re also reminded of the reason the people were in the wilderness – because God had delivered them from bondage in Egypt. A stiff-necked people who constantly complained, who were less than grateful for God’s gracious act of deliverance – in fact, after only a few days were saying how much better life had been in Egypt as slaves, and that they should go back… not believing in the promise of the Promised Land that God was promising to bring them to.

Not much changes over thousands of years. People still gripe and complain, and we still tend to not always believe in the promises of God when we can’t see them immediately. When we don’t see the Promised Land right before us – or even when we do, all we can focus on are the obstacles that lie in our path. Of all the distractions, of all the things that get in our way.

Yet Christmas is a time for us to refocus our attention back on what God has done in the world. How he comes to us in the form of a tiny child – vulnerable and human. Subject to all the same trials and tribulations any other human who lives in the midst of a sinful world must go through.

Many times we look for those great and spectacular acts of deliverance – like the pillars of fire, the parting of the sea, the plagues upon the Egyptians – thinking surely if we could just see those feats again, we might be able to believe better. Yet – the Israelites saw all those feats, they were themselves a people who had witnessed God’s great act of deliverance. And still—they grumbled, they complained, they turned to other gods and built a golden calf for themselves after only a few months of having witnessed those events.

So God chose to come to us in another way. To deliver us from our self-centered sinful ways. Not through some spectacular show of fire and plagues – but through something humble and ordinary.

God chose his great act of deliverance for the world to be through something simple – a young, unmarried peasant woman, betrothed to an ordinary carpenter. The only people present to witness the event – some shepherds who were out in the countryside tending their flocks. On a night… that was probably anything but silent.