The Word became flesh

Sermon for Christmas Day, 2009  Crows Nest Lutheran Parish

W.Logan

John 1:14
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.

It’s not about the food. Or is it? What is Christmas about?
It’s about wonderful spiritual things like ‘love’ and ‘peace’ and ‘joy’. It’s got nothing to do with our bodies, has it?

John 1:14 says ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ God, the eternal Word, the One who created the world, entered into physical creation…through the womb of a woman. He was in the world 9 months before his birth at Bethlehem. At Bethlehem he was born, and became visible to the world. God became tangible.

God is Spirit, the Holy Spirit. But in Jesus Christ God became human also. God took on human flesh.

This says something very significant about human flesh.

It says it’s not evil. Although evil is done by people who are ‘in the flesh.’

We are both physical and spiritual beings. We are sinful beings, beings who are out of sync’ with our Creator. Ephesians 2:1-3 says “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.”

Our spiritual rebellion against God shows itself in what we do, with our bodies. We think sinful thoughts, we do sinful actions. We feed sinful desires, and we fulfil our desires through sinful indulges. Or denials. There is such a thing as sinful denial.

We usually think of sins of the flesh as over-indulgence. Substance abuse, violence, inappropriate sexual interaction… But we can also sin by refusing to receive and appreciate God’s good gifts.

1 Timothy 4:1-5
(1)  The Spirit says clearly that some people will abandon the faith in later times; they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons. (2)  Such teachings are spread by deceitful liars, whose consciences are dead, as if burnt with a hot iron. (3)  Such people teach that it is wrong to marry and to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten, after a prayer of thanks, by those who are believers and have come to know the truth. (4)  Everything that God has created is good; nothing is to be rejected, but everything is to be received with a prayer of thanks, (5)  because the word of God and the prayer make it acceptable to God.

It is wrong and offends God when we look for ultimate satisfaction in the fultilment of our physical appetites. But it also grieves him when we refuse to receive his good gifts. Like a child who consistently refuses to eat the good nourishing food his or her parents provide, and who instead only wants to eat junk food.

We sin in our bodies. We need to control ourselves. As the Message translation of Titus 2:12  says: “We're being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life.” 

But sin is more powerful than our best intentions. In Romans 7:14,15 Paul writes “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.  For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

‘I am of the flesh.’

There are two ways the Bible uses this word, ‘flesh’. One is flesh in the sense of fallen human nature that despises God and devoid of his Spirit. It has no power to do good, in God’s terms, nor does it have any desire to. It only seeks to serve itself.

The second way the Bible talks about flesh is simply as our physical human nature.  Our created nature. A nature which is not evil, because God created it.

God took on our physical human nature, through the womb of Mary.

This tells us that pregnancy is not evil. Motherhood is strongly affirmed in God’s plan of salvation.

It also reinforces God’s word of creation, when, after making this physical world, God looked at it and said, in Genesis 1:31  “and behold, it was very good!”

Things went bad, in the physical world, and we as human beings went bad, after people turned against God in their hearts. They died to God in their spirits. Since then, we as human beings have ‘dead in our sins’.  But God, who is rich in mercy, did not want to let his world remain dead to him, and go on into spiritual and physical disintegration.

He promised a Saviour. Not a mighty angel. Not a fascinating spiritual or moral program of personal improvement or transformation. Our rebellion happened in this physical world. Our sins are done in our physical bodies. We feel shame, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

So in order to save us completely, God became flesh. The eternal Word, God the Son, entered creation and became truly human.

There are many religions that de-emphasise the physical world. They tell us to escape, to get ourselves away into some ethereal mode of existence.  But God doesn’t. He will save us from all the evil of this world, and this mode of existence: not by avoidance, but by tackling it head on. This is what he did in Christ.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us. We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Christ we see God’s glory: that is, Who God is, and what he is like. He is full of grace and truth. He is full of Grace: this means he does the work of salvation for us.

At Christmas we celebrate how he did this for us, and why he did this for us. Hear Hebrews 2:14-15 “Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death, and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.”

We do not need to seek to seek to escape this world. We do not need to merge with nothingness. This material world, including our physical bodies, is not the only or ultimate reality. There is more. But this world, and our bodies, are not evil. Corrupted by sin, defiled by evil, yes, but saved by Christ, the Word who became physical.
 
Having physical desires is not bad. Eating, drinking, enjoying life is not wrong. In fact God wants us to enjoy life. What he does not want, is that we become slaves to our desires. Jesus came to free us from all forms of slavery. He came to give us life. He came to give us joy!

Let us worship our God, the Word who became flesh for us, and celebrate Christmas with our bodies and with our minds, with our hearts, and voices. With all that we have and all that we are, let us worship and praise the one who gives us life, now and always! Amen!