A Polish woman once shared this story with Winston Churchill’s grandson:
I was a girl of just twelve, living in the Ghetto at the time of the Uprising as the Nazi storm-troopers were attacking us to take us to concentration camps. Whenever your grandfather broadcast over the BBC we would all crowd around the radio. I could not understand English but I knew that if my family and I were to have any hope of coming through this war, it depended entirely on this strong, unseen voice that I could not understand.[1]
That story says something to me about the power of the word, even a word we may not understand at first. That is what our Gospel reading for today is all about from John 1:1-18. Listen for God’s word to you…
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
In the first three verses and in the fourteenth verse of the opening chapter of his Gospel, John tells us five key things about the word. First, he tells us that the word existed in the beginning. This recalls for us the opening verse of Genesis by which every Jew would have known that book: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Then, in verse 17, John identifies the word, the logos (in Greek), with Jesus. This suggests that Jesus, or more properly, the Son of God, existed before he was born as a baby in Bethlehem. In fact, his existence goes all the way back to the beginning—before creation itself. As St. Athanasius said, “…there never was when he was not.” However far back we go, the Son of God is always there.
When novelist Lloyd C. Douglas was a university student, he lived in a boarding house. Downstairs on the first floor was an elderly, retired music teacher who was infirm and unable to leave his apartment.
Douglas said that every morning they had a ritual they would go through together. He would come down the steps, open the old man’s door, and ask, “Well, what’s the good news?”
The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say, “That’s Middle C! It was Middle C yesterday; it will be Middle C tomorrow; it will be Middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but my friend, that is Middle C!”[2]
That old man had discovered one thing upon which he could depend, one constant reality in his life, “the still point of the turning world”, to quote T. S. Eliot.
John is telling us that the Word, the Son of God, is really that “still point of the turning world”. He is the one absolute of which there is no shadow of turning. The Word existed in the beginning. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The second thing John tells us about the Word, the Logos, is that it was with God. Now this statement identifies Jesus, the Son of God, as a distinct person. In some sense Jesus is alongside of God. We have in this statement one of the earliest expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity. And yet, John is telling us that there has always been the closest, most intimate connection between the Word, Jesus, and God. That means no one can tell us what God is like, what God’s will is for us, what God’s love and heart and mind are like, as Jesus can.
There are no human analogies adequate to describe the relationship between Jesus, the Word, and God the Father. But try this analogy on for size anyway…
If we want to know what someone really thinks and feels about something, and if we can’t approach the person ourselves, then the best thing we can do is go to a person who knows that person the best. A person’s closest, most intimate friend, one who has known him the longest, will be best able to interpret that person’s heart and mind to us.
The relationship between God the Son and God the Father is something like that. Jesus has always been with God. Therefore, Jesus is the one person in all the universe who can best reveal to us who God really is and what God wants to do for us and in us and through us. Jesus gives us a 20/20 vision of God.
The third important thing John tells us is that Jesus, the Word, the Logos, was God. Literally, John says, “and God was the Word.” John is telling us in unmistakable terms that Jesus is God. He has just told us that Jesus is a distinct person in the Godhead, but he is still a member of the Godhead; Jesus is God, he shares the very essence of deity.
Again, there is no perfect human analogy to the Trinity because the Trinity is beyond our comprehension and is one of a kind. But one very childlike analogy that has been used is that of an apple. An apple has a core, it has the flesh (the bulk of the apple which we like to eat) and an apple has a skin. The skin, the flesh, and the core all share in the essence of “appleness”, but each is also distinct.
God the Father, The Word, and The Holy Spirit all share in the essence of deity, but each is a distinct person. John has told us that the Word is God, but also distinct from God, that is, from God the Father.
An analogy to the Trinity that I like even better is this one… St. Augustine said that God the Father is the Lover, Jesus is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is The Love Between Them.
Or there is this third analogy. St. Gregory Nazianzus taught that the Trinity is like a Great Dance. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have hands joined in a circle and are constantly dancing around one another. And we are invited to join in the dance.
Well, whichever analogy you like best, John makes the deity of the Word even clearer in his next statement. John says that through the Word “all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3) In other words, the Word, Jesus, was intimately involved in creation. This is the fourth thing John tells us about the Word.
The writer to the Hebrews put it this way: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” (Hebrews 1:1-2) It is not as though God the Father was the only member of the Trinity involved in creating the world. No, the Son was involved in creating as well. And the Spirit was there, Genesis tells us, brooding over the waters of creation.
In creation we begin to see the great power of the Word expressed. Have you ever wondered how much power it would take to make a world? My father sat down to figure it out one day using Einstein’s formula, E=MC2. Here is what he wrote about that experiment…
Following Einstein’s formula, if we take two and two-tenths pounds of matter (a kilogram) and we reduce it to fragments, or as we say until our chain of fission is complete, we will end up with 25 billion kilowatt hours of energy, which is equivalent, approximately, to the total output of all of our power sources in the whole of the United States operating at peak efficiency 24 hours a day for 60 days.
Of course the reverse of this then would be true in determining how much energy it would take to bring into existence a kilogram of matter. Again it would take 25 billion kilowatt hours of energy.
The world in which we live weighs 6.5 septillion tons. Then to determine the kilowatt hours of energy necessary to bring into existence a world you would multiply 6.5 septillion tons by 25 billion. This then would give us in kilowatt hours the energy necessary to bring into existence a world.
The question then is where you can get that much energy, even if you used all of the power sources in the whole of the world, operating these at peak efficiency, 24 hours a day, including not only the power plants as sources of energy but all of our working atomic piles. Work all of these peak efficiency 24 hours a day for 20 billion years, even then you only have a fraction of energy necessary to bring into existence a world.
That’s why I like the way in which this is expressed in the Old Testament. “God spoke and the worlds were formed.” Or in other words, God expressed His power and the worlds were formed.
And John tells us that the power that created the world and the far-flung galaxies of the universe is contained in the Word, the Logos, who is Jesus Christ.
Finally, the fifth thing John tells us is that the Word became flesh. The same Word, through whom the universe was created, became flesh. John doesn’t simply say that he became human, or a body. John uses the Greek word “sarx”. This refers to humanity in all its frailty and vulnerability.
John tells us that the Word became flesh. The Word did not give up being the Word by becoming flesh. Jesus did not give up deity by being born as a babe in Bethlehem. No, he is still fully God and, since his conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, he is fully human. Once he became human, there was no going back.
Mystery writer, Dorothy Sayers, said this of the Incarnation…
… from the beginning of time until now it is the only thing which has ever really happened… We may call this doctrine exhilarating or we may call it devastating, we may call it revelation or we may call it rubbish… but if we call it dull then what in heaven’s name is worthy to be called exciting?
Now, I know that some people have a hard time accepting the idea of the Incarnation. The story is told of a Hindu man who could not believe in Christianity because he could not contemplate a God who would so humble himself as to become human. Then one day the Hindu came upon an anthill. He tried to get close enough to the anthill to study it, but every time he bent low, his shadow caused all the ants to scurry away. This Hindu man recognized that the only way in which he could ever come to really know that colony of ants would be if he could somehow become an ant himself. And that was the moment at which his conversion to Christianity began.
I believe that God became human in Jesus of Nazareth to communicate himself to us. If you have a hard time believing that, then here is what I would challenge and invite you to do. Go home and begin reading the Gospel of John for yourself. And as you read it, pray something like this: “God, if you are real, reveal yourself to me through this book.”
In a way, without saying it, all through this message, I have been inviting you to consider a question. And the question is: “What child is this?”
What child is this
Who lay to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping
The story behind those words is a fascinating one…
William Chatterton Dix was born in Somerset, England, in 1837. During a time when few adventurous folks migrated more than fifty miles from their place of birth, Dix eventually found himself as manager of a marine insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland, by the time he was twenty-five. Though in charge of some of his company’s most important accounts and eventually the head of a growing family, Dix still found time to write. Many accused him of pursuing poetry as his passion and his job as a sideline venture. Dix’s writing embraced a wide range of thoughts and subjects. It lacked much focus, however, until tragedy struck. A near-fatal illness robbed him of his strength and confined the man to bed for many months. As he lay near death, he often reflected on his faith. Reading his Bible and studying the works of theologians, Dix reaffirmed his belief not only in Christ as Savior but in the power of God to move in his own life. Not long after regaining his strength, he was inspired to write some of the greatest hymns to ever come forth from the pen of an English layman. Among these was a song he titled “The Manger Throne”. It was published in England just as the U.S. Civil War was ending and soon became popular in America. But its popularity truly soared when Dix’s words were paired by an unknown Englishman with a famous pub song from the 1500s known as “Greensleeves” and it was re-titled “What Child Is This?”[3]
The creation of this beloved Christmas carol is just one more example of how God can take the worst of places, a shipyard in Glasgow, and the worst of circumstances, a near-fatal illness, and he can make it all serve the best of his purposes.
The Word became flesh. Think of it! The Logos, the reasoning power behind the universe, the power that created all that is, seen and unseen, took on our frail human flesh, and became a babe in Bethlehem, a baby born in a barn and placed in a feeding trough for his cradle.
Is not a story like this worthy of our investigation? Isn’t it strange and marvelous enough that we ought to check it out to see if it is so? “What child is this?” is one of the greatest questions that has ever been asked. Today, we have seen John’s answer to that question. He tells us the child is the Word. Who do you say he is?
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