And the Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

Suggested gospel reading: John 1:1-16

An archeologist was telling the indigenous people with whom she was working about our custom of giving gifts on Christ’s birthday. On Christmas morning, one of the native people brought the archeologist a shell of exquisite beauty.

The archeologist asked where it had come from. The native said he had walked many miles to a certain bay, the only spot where such shells could be found. “It was wonderful of you to travel so far to get this shell for me.” The other smiled warmly and said, “Long walk part of gift.”

Incarnation.
It means to put something into a body,
to embody,
to bring together body and spirit,
or, we could say, to bring together the human and the Divine.
It’s a Christmas word,
and it is about our capacity to birth God into the world.

In traditional Christian language, we say that Jesus was One in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Yes. A poet named John, using the term logos, which we translate as Word, and which is similar to the Hebrew word Sophia, or wisdom, describes it like this:

            In the beginning was the Word,
            And the word was with God,
            And the Word was God…
            And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
            And from his fullness we have all received
            Grace upon grace.    (from John 1)

So the tradition has different ways of talking about Jesus
and that Christmas word, incarnation.
But here is what matters;
here is what counts:
Christmas is not about a sweet story of a long-ago past.
Christmas is our reminder of who we really are,
or who we can really be.
We are people of the incarnation.
That is, we have the capacity (and the call) to incarnate—to embody—God in the world.

If you are arguing over whether the Christmas story is literally true in every detail,
you are missing the point.
This sacred story is about Jesus, yes,
but mostly it is about you and me.
It is an invitation to us to recognize that we are called
to be like Jesus
and embody God in our lives,
to be like Mary
and give birth to God through our choices, our relationships, our daily lives.
A Christ is one who embodies God for others.
If you are one claiming to follow Christ,
that is what you are claiming:
that you have accepted the call to be Christ to others,
to flesh out
the compassion
and forgiveness
and love
and justice
and creativity of God.

How are you incarnating God today?

Some describe their faith as being about proclamation:
proclaiming the gospel of Jesus.
That’s important, but that’s not primary.
Our primary calling is not to proclamation, but to incarnation:
embodying God,
birthing God/Christ into the world
through our own bodies,
our hearts and minds and words,
our actions,
our choices.
That’s what Christmas is about.

In our Christmas carols,
we sing about worshipping the Christ child.
That’s good, but I go a step farther.
I understand that it is not just one historical baby that I worship,
but the Ultimate Reality (that I call God) which that baby symbolizes.
And I believe that the real call is not to worship Jesus,
though that is also good,
but to be a Christ, as he was.
That’s what church is about:
our trying to flesh out more authentically the visions of God,
our trying to bring spirit and matter together,
using our flesh to express God’s Spirit.

The Word is made flesh and dwells among us every time
we choose love when it would be easy, even expected, to choose hate;
when we choose humility instead of self-righteousness,
mutual empowerment instead of abusive power.
The Word is made flesh and dwells among us every time
we give compassion instead of criticism,
every time we choose to be healing instead of hurtful.

This is not to say that there is no God in the universe,
that it is all up to us, and we are all we have.
No.
But Christmas tells us that the Divine and the human are all mixed up together,
and that the human is called to embody the Divine;
Flesh is the vehicle by which the Divine comes into the world.

This is also not to say that the Divine is good and the human is bad.
No.
This is to say that the human is permeated with Divinity,
and our call is to recognize that,
and live it.

We tell this wonderful, ancient story over and over every year
to remind ourselves of this sacred and vital truth:
we each carry God within us,
waiting to be born into the world.

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum tells about the afternoon some days before Christmas when he had a surprising visitor. It wasn’t a good day for him. “Wintersgloom. Things-to-do list was long and growing like an unresistant mold. Temper: short. Bio-index: negative. Horoscope suggested caution.” There was a pounding at the door. A small child in a cheap Santa Claus mask and carrying a brown paper bag calls out “Trick or Treat!” Fulghum recognizes the boy, maybe about 8 years old, as one of the Vietnamese refuges that the Quakers took in last year. He had come at Halloween dressed like a Wise Man. Now he offers to do some caroling. Fulghum says, “Sure, where’s the choir?” and the child answers, “I’m it.” And so he sings Jingle Bells, and Hark the Hairy Angels Sing and finally a quiet, reverential Silent Night. And he runs off into the night calling “God bless you! Trick or Treat!”

The long walk is part of the gift.
The body is part of Spirit.
The Divine is part of the human.
Let the Word become flesh once again and dwell among us.
Recognize this truth of Christmas: I’m it.

                                                                              ©2007 Janice Jean Springer