Dec 23, 2018

And the Word Became Flesh (1)

And took up Residence among us.

John 1:14

I will be repeating a series i wrote last year on the celebration of the birth of Jesus, as i take a short vacation.

We spin much around the birth of Jesus that sometimes we forget exactly who and where Jesus came from. This is the same Word that the Prologue of the Gospel of John states “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through the Word, and apart from the Word not one thing came into being that has come into being. In the Word was life, and the life was the light of humanity. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Quite a mouthful. This was written 2000 years ago, and the author had no inkling of what the universe actually consists of or the age of the universe. From what we can tell, it was just accepted that the universe was there, probably forever, and no imagination could have given them a hint of the truth.

But now we know what the universe is, we understand the age, the history, and the absurdly short time humanity has existed in that universe.

But none of that changes that profound prologue to the Gospel of John. So who or what exactly was/is the Word? Or perhaps we should use the word that is used throughout the gospels but especially in the writings of Paul: the Christ. For the Word is the Christ, and the Christ, that physical and spiritual side of the Word came into being with the what we call the Big Bang, some 13.7 billion years ago. What we call the Word contains what we call the Christ, which is the specific embodiment in this particular universe we inhabit.

The joy that we feel as we celebrate the birth of the babe some 2000 years ago comes from we are celebrating the birth of a true human baby, joined to the eternal Word that creates all that exists. Jesus was physically just the same as all of humanity: made from the stardust and remnants of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. And just as with all of humanity, his body changed and shed on cells and flakes of dust on a constant basis, changing his entire cell volume several times during the 33 years he lived on earth. The humanity of Jesus was complete: he had to eat, exercise, use the waste facilities, sleep, and study. His emotions were all present, and he had to learn to keep them under his control, just like you and me. He was fully human in all aspects, and had to do all the things every other human boy and young man had to do growing up. Due to the atmospheric turbulence that makes our little blue ball full of life, it is said that all things contain particles of everything that has ever lived on earth. If that is true, each of us contain particles of Jesus, so that we are truly one with all, including Jesus, as Jesus prayed in John’s gospel.

Next we will look at the other part of Jesus; his soul.

Meditation

Spirit of Love, I surrender to your being and open myself up to be that Love in my little corner of the world. Help me to be a fountain of compassion and caring, where others may find peace and joy in life. In this season of giving, I give what my life can give into your care for however long I have left in this beautiful world. We welcome the infant babe into the wild world that the World creates, bow gratefully for the ongoing movement to become, for all of humanity, the Kingdom of God in the fullness of grace.