Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
“In the Flesh”
John 1:14
December 25, 2016
In a remote corner of a forgotten part of the world, a woman gasps for breath and cries out in pain. A man stands alone near her and tries to offer what help and comfort he can provide—but it is not much. Indeed, at the moment he feels altogether helpless and more than a little awkward. The couple is huddled in crude surroundings. Nothing elegant, nothing particularly sanitary, but at least they are warm and dry and protected from the elements. A cry of pain again fills the cramped, dimly-lit space, and then all is still. Finally, the silence is broken by another cry—a new cry, the unmistakable and insistent cry of an infant. New life has entered the world. The child fills his lungs with the thick warm air and lets out another startled wail. A smile touches the corners of the woman’s lips, and the man laughs out loud. Their new baby, their first, is alive and healthy. The child is swiftly bundled up and then hugged close by his mother. An overwhelming sense of joy, gratitude, and pride fills the couple. This child is just like them: the same skin, the same eyes, the same fingers, the same face, the same name, the same heritage, the same…sin. Yes, this newborn baby is just like his parents in every way, right down to his broken sinful nature. The child’s name does not matter. This child is each one of us. This child is me. This child is you.
Every single one of us came into this world in the same way—essentially the same way that this baby did. You were born of two human parents. Through a physical union, a new physical child comes into existence. And, the offspring of this union inherits all the physical properties of his parents. The baby eats and cries and wets and spits up. The baby is real—a material, physical creature. And the baby inherits problems, like his parents: susceptibility to disease, sharp pangs of hunger and pain, disappointment and sorrow, and finally, certainly, the common destiny of all physical creatures: death. Here at the birth, it seems far away. But it is inevitable. A baby is born in the flesh and it inherits all the properties of the flesh—including, most certainly, death.
A flesh-born baby inherits his parents’ spiritual heritage as well. He comes into the world with a scream, and he spends the rest of his life kicking and screaming: screaming at parents, screaming at siblings, at teachers, at bosses, at the world…at God—yes, especially at God. From the time of his conception, a baby lives in the flesh and he fights the struggles of the flesh. By nature, ever since man’s rebellion against the Creator, the biggest struggle a human will have is his fight against God. Life in the flesh is tough. It’s dangerous. It’s terrifying. And it always ends the same way: with decaying flesh. This is the way of life for those born in the flesh: a struggle from start to finish—a struggle against disease, a struggle to avoid pain, a struggle to find happiness, a struggle to restrain immorality, a struggle to contain and alleviate guilt, a struggle somehow, someway to elude the inevitable, and escape death itself. That’s what life is like, in the flesh. And the author and director of the whole mess is God—no wonder people have issues with God. No wonder he is the target of their desperate screams and their angry accusations.
Because life in the flesh is the pain-filled struggle that it is, people have tried continually to find some way to get out. It seems that if man could just slip free of the flesh, he’d be all right. If only we could shake off this clumsy mass of flesh with all of its inherent problems, then we could do some real living. And, so through the ages, and still today, people look for escape routes, a way out of the despair, darkness, and death. Some men spend their time thinking and looking and find what seems to be a light—a guide to lead the way out of darkness, out of the flesh. Some of these religious lights seem to offer a real solution, full of hope and promise. And so, thousands and even millions line up behind the light and follow it out into the darkness, confident that release from the pain of life in the flesh is just ahead. But, these lights always fade and eventually fail completely. Then, lost in absolute darkness, the religious follower can only crash back into the despair and horror of life in the flesh—life that ends in death.
Others attempt to build ladders, up and out of the mess of life in the flesh. They make ladders called philosophical speculation, political salvation, scientific inquiry, social progress, or moral uprightness. These ladders are planted firmly on the ground of life-in-the-flesh and aimed up, and men begin to climb. They build as they go, adding new rungs, as they are able. Some of these ladders seem strong and safe and many clamor onto them hopeful that the ladder will lead them up out of the misery of life in the flesh. But, every ladder always comes up short. The top rung is reached, the darkness and death are still profound, and the next rung just isn’t there. Always the poor soul once confidently climbing, finally finds himself plummeting through the darkness back to life in the flesh, life that ends in death, along with everyone else. No one can climb out of life in the flesh.
But, everyone wishes that they could. Everyone wants there to be something more, something better than this brief, disappointing, painful, unfair life. So, people search and climb and hope. Like the conquistadors of old scrounging around Florida looking for the fountain of youth, people continue to scour and look for the secret, the system, the formula that will free them from the flesh. They may not realize it, but everyone in the flesh is looking for the same thing. They all want life in the light, life with peace, life that doesn’t end. It goes by many names: bliss, utopia, nirvana, paradise, heaven—the place where the flesh does not drag you down, the spiritual place—the place that belongs to God. Whatever it is called, it is the goal of every creature who lives in the flesh.
Far above the mundane, tragic, existence of this world; far above life in the flesh, transcendent, mysterious, utterly singular, and marvelously self-contained, God lives. And here, in God’s presence, is the life force or spirit that animates and guides everything. This is the controlling, motivating element of God that directs all creation. The ancient Greeks called this power, the logos. The logos is the perfect will of God in action. The logos makes things happen. The Bible uses just this word, telling us that God created all things through the logos, which was with God from the beginning. In fact, the Bible declares that this logos is God. In English, the logos is simply the Word. The Word is the omnipotent, active power of God; and so it is this power, this life of God that all men desire and seek, but never find and never reach. It can’t be done. No man can get out of the flesh and find his way to the heights where God is. No man can reach up and grasp the truth of God’s logos. You can’t avoid despair. You can’t elude death. You can’t escape the flesh.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The eternal, omnipotent, Creator of all, God himself, joined us in the flesh. The pre-existent Lord of all, the logos, became a real flesh and blood child, a fetus inside the flesh of a woman. The Word got skin and blood and bones and muscles and membranes and organs and guts. He got it all. He got flesh, real human flesh. God filled the gap. God filled the impossible gulf that exists between men who live in the flesh—and the joy, peace, and life of God. He filled the space that could not be bridged by ladders or navigated by fading lights. He filled the gap with himself. God became flesh. He was born—a painful, noisy, sloppy, bloody reality. He was born just like every baby is born. God became flesh. Sometimes we forget just how incredible it all is, this message of Christmas. Distracted by the beauty and the busy-ness and the joys and delights of the season, we forget the astounding, reality of Christmas. Think about it: God became human, one of us, a flesh and blood, muscles and sweat man. And he did it to fill the dark chasm, to fill it with himself.
It is the key to the entire message of the Christian gospel: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory.” Man doesn’t find God. God finds him. God comes to him—and he comes on man’s level. Actually, John packs even more into this verse than our English translations allow. The word we translate live is literally to pitch one’s tent, to tabernacle. In the Old Testament, it was at the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, that God was present with his people. At the tabernacle, the people of Israel would stand in awe as they watched the presence of God, the Shekinah, or dwelling-glory of God enter the tent of meeting. The tabernacle was the place where God was present for his people. Still, all of those times that God’s Shekinah was present in the tabernacle were only hints. They were all fulfilled and surpassed when God became flesh. At Christmas, the Shekinah, the glory of God’s presence, joined the flesh of a human body. No more tents, now it was flesh—living, breathing, and walking. In Jesus, God was man: the Word made flesh, God dwelling with us.
Whenever the Shekinah of God’s presence appeared in the Old Testament, it was a vision of glory. It left prophets and people speechless. John tells us that that glory of God was visible in Jesus. In the flesh of Jesus, there was glory to be seen. But, the glory of God in Jesus was not what people expected. Armies of heavenly angels didn’t follow Jesus. He did not demand the adoration of all who met him. He did not radiate effulgent streams of brilliance. His voice did not rumble with a resonant bass that shook the ground. He was just a man; so most people did not realize that in seeing Jesus they were seeing the reality of God. They didn’t see God in Jesus because they were looking for a more sensational way out of their flesh. They wanted a better, brighter light. They wanted a stronger, longer ladder. They wanted another, nobler, way that they could take to get out of the flesh. People still do this today; they don’t want a crucified savior, so they dismiss him. They can’t believe that a man who is utterly normal and who dies so horribly can actually be the Shekinah, the glory of God. He didn’t look like God. He can’t possibly be the logos or the Word. He can’t really be God. God doesn’t walk on earth. God doesn’t get hungry. God doesn’t suffer. God doesn’t die. And because Jesus does not fit their expectations about God, they reject him. They don’t see God’s glory. But the glory is there.
Whether people then or now recognize it or not, Jesus is the true Shekinah. He is God’s glory. In Jesus, God made himself known; he showed glory…he showed love. That’s the glory. God’s glory is not flashy splendor and majesty. God’s glory is love, love that took on flesh, love that lived in humility, love that carried the pain and sorrow of the world; love that even carried the sin of the world. Jesus suffered. He died. Indeed…he loved. That’s the glory. In the flesh, Jesus died for all of us in the flesh. He entered the darkness, he endured the pain, he experienced the hell. It all happened in the Word made flesh. It all happened on the cross. It was the work of divine love, and so it was the greatest glory of God. God’s glory was the flesh on the cross. The bloody, beaten, twisted, and mutilated flesh of Jesus hanging on bare wood is the ultimate expression of God’s glory. It is glory because it is love.
For broken man living in a broken world, life in the flesh is miserable from start to finish. It begins in pain and ends in death. No wonder anyone who is paying attention and thinking, wants out. But in his marvelous plan, God took those three words, and gave them new meaning. He made in the flesh a declaration of comfort and joy, because he claimed those words for himself. He took flesh on himself and changed everything. Yes, you are still in the flesh. You know it. You still suffer in the flesh. You still grieve in the flesh. You will still die in the flesh. But everything’s changed now that God has become flesh. Now, you have the light of God in your darkness; you aren’t lost or overwhelmed. Now, you have the peace of God in your affliction; you aren’t forsaken or hopeless. Now, you have the life of God in your death; you aren’t doomed to eternal death. Because God came in the flesh, your flesh is no longer the trap and terminal sentence that it once was. Now your flesh has been saved. God doesn’t take you out of the flesh…no, he redeems your flesh.
You don’t need ladders. You don’t need lights. You don’t need insights or guides. You only need Jesus—the Word incarnate, the Word made flesh. He bridged the gap between God and man with himself. Eternal peace in God’s presence, is yours…now. It’s yours because the Word became flesh and saved your flesh, forever. Amen.