John calls him “The Word” because he thinks of Jesus as the message from God, not a 2D flat message of words on paper, but a living 3D-message from God to us…
The Message version of the Bible I was reading put it like this:
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbour-hood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish...” John 1:14 MSG
There’s something about that phrase: “... Moved into the neighbourhood...”
It plays with my mind to think of the eternal, life-creating, world-sustaining ‘Word” — becoming just flesh and blood — and just moving into the neighbourhood. Kind of like watching through the curtains at what's happening at the house across the road.
You picture a removalist van pulling up and backing into the drive-way and unloading a bed, piano, couch, tennis racquet, rusty bike, a kettle, footy scarf, doona and so on!
It’s like Joan Osborne’s song: “What if God was one of us?”
If God had a name what would it be? And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory What would you ask if you had just one question?
What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus, Trying to make his way home…”
I love that YouTube clip of a flash-mob in a food court at a normal suburban shopping centre. A flash-mob is a drama-team or a singing-group disguised to look like everyday shoppers going about their business, who suddenly and unexpectedly burst into performance startling their peers out of their mundane shopping!
This particular flash mob had powerfully trained voices – and one at a time, they join in, joyously bursting into the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah – until a hundred strong choir are sounding aloud: “King of Kings and Kings and Lord of Lords for ever and ever and ever...” to an utterly amazed audience of harried and tired Christmas shoppers eating their junk food in a busy, noisy, commercial mall!
And then it’s over, the choir in their everyday clothes dissolves into the crowd and disappears, but the joy and laughter and energy of the performance feeds the souls of the crowd. Everyone feels a little more encouraged and hopeful as they go on their way.
Ordinary looking people in everyday clothes entering into the frenetic headache inducing chaos of pre-Christmas shopping; with its harried shoppers, annoying spruikers; tired children; frazzled shop keepers; noise; junk-food and jingles! And yet what music - The Word in grace entering and touching humans hearts!
"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 1: 14
The glory of God in the neighbourhood!
The grace and the truth — the salt and the light — right there in the corner house! Outside the shopfront! In the marketplace! In the office! At the school! At the table in the cafe!
And yet, the even bigger mystery is what John reports, 17 chapters later, as Jesus prays before he heads for the Cross.
Jesus turns to his Father, and thinking of his followers Jesus prays:
“… As you [Father] sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, [set myself apart] that they too may be truly sanctified [set apart].
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me….”John 17: 18
Wow!
We now, are like the Word in human form, sent into the neighbourhood.
We are sent just as Jesus was sent, with the Father’s grace and truth.
We could re-write John 1: 14 to say: “… The Word has now become flesh and blood in each of you … and made his dwelling among us. We have seen, in each you, his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The presence and the grace of the Spirit of God, works through you and me, for his Glory, bringing grace and truth, and salt and light to the neighbourhoods, and by-ways and towns and cities, to the rich and poor; the powerful and the weak.
At Christmas we can say: "Thankyou, living word, that YOU are still in our midst, in the faces and eyes and heart and mind and hands and feet of each of these followers of Jesus."
You are each called and chosen and uniquely shaped and filled and sent into the many neighbourhood of this complex world. Go through advent and into the coming year with god's blessing!
May the Lord bless you with discomfort...
at easy answers, hard hearts,
Discomfort at half-truths, and superficial relationships.
May God bless you so that may live
from deep within your heart
where God's Spirit dwells.
May God bless you with anger...
at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people.
May God bless you so that you may
work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears...
to shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation and war.
May God bless you so that you
may reach out your hand
to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with
just enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference
in this world, in your neighbourhood,
so that you will courageously try what you don't think you can do,
but, in Jesus Christ you'll have all the strength necessary.
May God bless you to fearlessly
speak out about injustice,
unjust laws, corrupt politicians,
unjust and cruel treatment of prisoners,
and senseless wars,
genocides, starvations, and poverty that is so pervasive.
May God bless you that you remember
we are all called
to continue God's redemptive work
of love and healing
in God's place, in and through God's name,
in God's Spirit, continually creating
and breathing new life and grace
into everything and everyone we touch.