INCARNATION 1 A STUDY IN THE BOOK OF JOHN
JOHN 1:1-18
SEPTEMBER 13, 2015
This time about a month ago, the Iowa State Fair took place. The only reason I know this is because some very rich and powerful people were there. Nine times out of ten, when rich and powerful people are around, they let you know they are around. They don’t blend in. They have entourages to protect and insulate them. You can’t be near them. Their clothes don’t look like yours. Their vehicles don’t look like yours. Their lives don’t look like yours.
But something strange happened in Iowa. The rich and powerful didn’t try to differentiate. They tried to blend in:
They tried to wear clothes like us, come near to us and eat our food. I am, of course, talking about the run up to the 2016 election and candidates for both sides descended upon the Iowa State Fair, and they tried their best to not look rich and powerful and different. Instead of suits, they put on jeans. Instead of power lunches at DC’s finest restaurants, they ate double bacon deep-fried corndogs. Instead of seeing them from afar or only on TV, you could breathe their air and sidle up to them.
Why? For votes! And you get votes by being relatable. The funny thing, of course, is how uncomfortable they all look. 1) Because it looks ridiculous for adults to be photographed eating double bacon deep-fried corndogs. 2) Because we all know deep down, it is a show. The jeans don’t last. The power lunches resume. The velvet ropes and security measures are reintroduced. It’s ridiculous because we know it is only for an instant. It’s a show so they can resume being rich and powerful after they have your vote. I think deep down they are uncomfortable, and we are uncomfortable with it because we know the truth. They’re not really like us.
Something strange also happened in Bethlehem, the most rich and powerful being in the world stooped down to be among us. He left glory for ruins. He left angels for shepherds. He left perfection for brokenness. God was no longer a concept or an idea. You could sidle up next to him and breathe his air. The biggest difference is it wasn’t a show. He left heaven for earth and he stuck around, not for a day or two, but a lifetime. He walked our streets. He knew our pain. He had a job and he knew our joy. He felt rough-hewn lumber in his hands and shaped it into meaningful things. He handled rough-hewn souls in his hands and shaped them into something meaningful.
Here is the amazing part, unlike Iowa,it didn’t feel like he was out of place. He was so comfortable with us and many were so comfortable with him because there was no straw poll at the end of the day. People were so comfortable with him from his childhood and early years that most everyone did not see him as a messiah. His mom and siblings thought he was a little bit loony when he started to preach. Future disciples looked at him and his pedigree and said, “What good could come from Nazareth?” His entire hometown was so comfortable with him that they completely refused to believe he could be anything more than the son of a carpenter. The religious experts of the day constantly berated him and sought to destroy him.
Jesus of Nazareth lived before many, died in front of many and rose before a few. This wasn’t during the time of 24-hour news cycles and viral videos where everyone could see his story. His story was localized and highly dependent upon word of mouth, and for most who knew him, they liked him but did not consider him messianic material. He wasn’t born into a royal household. He never rose in the ranks of government. He did not have an important job. He was just among us and then he was gone.
That is why the gospels were written, each with different applications, but all with a singular purpose because a lot of people missed it. So many people were so comfortable with God’s son in their midst that they missed how special he was. So the gospel writers went out of their way to tell the miracles surrounding his life, death and resurrection. They went out of their way to make sure people knew about his teaching and his miracles.
John, in particular, starts with a thesis that is so grand as to make everyone uncomfortable.
John 1: 1-5
Referring to Jesus here as the “Word,” John says Jesus was not just a carpenter from Nazareth, he was pre-existent, he was the creator and all of life emanates from him. That is quite a statement, especially for a historical figure that worked as a carpenter and then led a small movement among a minority people group. A man who hung out not with politicians or the rich and powerful but usually with the lowlifes of the community, and he was unceremoniously put to death for treason. There were rumors of his resurrection but those reports were rare and usually discounted. John then comes along and says this nobody was the pre-existent all powerful God and he walked among us.
School is underway now and I know the teachers among us are trying to establish classroom order, but that can be difficult especially at the classroom level. In a large college class, one professor was aware of his whole class, but he knew none of them. They were names on paper, concepts really. When it came to the end of the semester, they poured out all they knew on paper. Time was up and everyone turned their papers in, except one student, who kept working and working. The professor told him if he didn’t stop work immediately that he would fail, but the student kept writing. He finally made his way up front and the professor told him straight away that he had failed for not listening and exceeding his time limit. The student incredulously looked at the professor and said, “Do you know who I am?” The professor didn’t care if this kid had rich influential parents, he was still getting failed, and so he said, “I don’t know and I don’t care who you are.” The student said, “I didn’t think so,” and then quickly stuck his test in the middle of the stack and walked away.
For many people, the idea of Jesus is little more than a name on paper. We can become such a student of the scripture that we never look up to see him. We can become so enamored with the idea of Jesus that we forget that he walked our roads and breathed our air. He’s not a theological construct to be learned but a messiah to be followed.
This scandalous and uncomfortable idea is called Incarnation. That word broken down is about coming in the flesh. Jesus didn’t come as an apparition that hovered among us. He didn’t come as a demigod like Hercules. He took on our flesh and walked among us.
There are two major implications for the idea of the incarnation: 1) If Jesus was God made flesh,then he is the point of the Bible. What was previously understood through second and third parties was laid bare. That means all of scripture is read in light of Jesus. We don’t read Paul and interpret Jesus through Paul. We interpret Paul through Jesus. We don’t read the Old Testament and make Jesus fit with an understanding of the law, we make the law submissive to Jesus.
Several years ago, I went to the Four Seasons restaurant in Dallas. As you probably could’ve guessed, I was not a regular at the Four Seasons. We went with a friend of the family who owned the whole place. I can tell you one thing for certain, dining with the owner changes your experience. You are no longer waiting at the whims of the hostess stand. The owner just walks to a table and you just need to follow him there. No other parties are ahead of you. You are no longer eating at the whims and the competencies of your waiter. In the past, the waiter translated the entire restaurant experience for you. The menu has its offerings, but the owner can ask for anything special to be made. You don’t look to the waiter, you follow the owner’s lead. You never have to ask for refills, and there is no worry about the check. Dining with the owner completely changes your dining experience.
If Jesus is God-made-flesh then your first rule of order is being with him and following his lead, but it is quite easy to forget the order of things and many people spend time worrying about lesser concerns. Countless churches spend hours reading the letters of Paul and try to figure out how Jesus fits with Paul’s theology. Paul is a waiter in the divine restaurant. Just like me. Just like any interpreter of faith. If the incarnation is true, you now have a theological hierarchy to follow. Follow the owner’s lead. Waiters and pastors will help along the way, but let’s keep this simple, “What would the owner do?”
One of my greatest passions as a pastor is making the Christian life simple. Not simplistic or trite but simple, memorable and easy to access. That is why we believe to follow Jesus at SFC you need to do three things: practice Life in God-intentional Christ-centered worship, Life with Others-practicing your faith in Christian community and Life for Others-serving and sharing inside and outside of the church. Now if you read a lot of Christian books or listen to other Christian speakers, this can get convoluted really quickly. You can read five different books on the idea of Christianity and get seven different ideas.
Every pastor, writer and small group leader is a waiter, hostess or chef. They don’t own the restaurant. When it comes to complicated issues, political issues or moral issues, it is easy to run to your favorite interpreter of faith or your favorite book in the Bible. My encouragement is to go to the owner first. Don’t use proof texts from the Bible if they are incongruent with Jesus. Don’t sidestep the call to love your neighbor because one pastor was able to tell you, “That’s not what Jesus really meant.” If Jesus said, “Care for the poor,” that is what he really meant. If Jesus encourages grace while pointing towards righteous living, that is what he really meant.
I’m sure you have read recently about the flood of Syrian refugees trying to flee their war- torn country. It is a logistical and political nightmare for the European Union because it affects infrastructure. It affects budget. It affects comfort. Many of the refugees have been fleeing through Hungary to get to the seemingly promised lands of places like Germany that will receive them, but the Hungarian government has been rebuffing these refugees.
Now I know this is a complicated situation and handling the logistics, infrastructure and the burden of refugees takes complex solutions. I understand that. What I don’t understand is the recent statements of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, made in a Germannewspaper, “That it was important to secure his nation’s borders from mainly Muslim migrants ‘to keep Europe Christian.’”
Some Christians have seen the refugee crisis and had a hard time with what to do with it. We have the rule of law, but we also have a carpenter who when he was a boy, had to flee from the threat of violence, and he was received in a foreign land. I think Jesus meant it when he called us to receive the least of these. He meant that when we do that, we do it for him because he was one of them once. We can look at other parts of the Bible or the interpretations of certain pastors, but the owner has spoken. John knew this.
John 1: 6-9
John has just stated the incarnation of Jesus and right away he puts the waiters, chefs and hostesses in their place. John the Baptist wasn’t the light. He was just a witness to it, speaking about what he saw.
On this and any issue like it, the incarnation changes what you should do. Jesus is not one of the leaders in our movement. He is the leader and everything else is just details. The rest is just commentary. Hopefully this is a gift for you, a gift to simplify your daily life. All 66 books of the Bible are worthwhile for teaching and exhortation, but if they all lead to Jesus, then all of our interpretation and application starts there.
The second implication of the incarnation will become clear as we go throughout this book, but we get a hint of it here.
John 1:9-12
If you choose to receive Jesus, to follow him, to dine with the owner, you have the right to become a child of God. This theology will get fleshed out in John 14 when Jesus talks about his impending death and departure and he mentions the Holy Spirit. He begins to use this language that extends the incarnation, because if we receive Jesus, he now is incarnate in us. God lives in us. He guides us. Shapes us. Comforts us. Leads us.
This is revolutionary. Something we can become easily comfortable with, but it should be shocking. This leads to an idea that we will explore throughout this series that I introduced a few weeks back- the vicarious economy of the Kingdom. If God is incarnate in us, then we are God in this world. We are his ambassadors. That has huge implications for what you do with your life. When people see you, they should see Jesus. Conversely, when you see other people, you should see Jesus.
Jesus makes this quite clear when he says, “What you do for the least of these, you do for me.” That’s not poetic language. If God is incarnate in us and in others, when we love other people, we are loving God. When others are loving us, God is loving us. The problem, of course, is that Western culture is wildly individualistic and we have imported that into Christianity in a way it was never meant to be. We have a lot of “Rambo” Christians who are defending themselves and looking out for themselves and all they need is God.
We will see time and again that this equation simply does not add up. You cannot say you love God and do nothing for his people. If you have the vertical relationship with God, it changes what you do with a watching world. I really encourage you to join a Life Group if you haven’t already done so. You will experience God in fresh new ways through other humans. They will hear truth and wisdom spoken in divine ways through you. For the men here, I will be doing a weekly Life Group on Thursday nights starting on September 17 to talk about work. I think that is a pertinent subject in Silicon Valley where work can quickly take over. We will be asking big questions about God’s plans for how and why we work. Christian community changes you. It opens your eyes to the other people at the table. When you hear about their experience of dining with the owner, it molds you and strengthens you.
I have to tell you, when I ate at the owner’s table in Dallas,it changed my manners. It would be easy to take a high position since I was already dining with the owner, but I saw him get up from the table at one point and adjust a rug himself. He didn’t tell someone else to do it; he stooped down in his expensive suit and did it himself. Sitting at the owner’s table meant people would think of him when they observed me, so I withheld complaints and set aside snootiness.
The world is watching as people are apathetic or downright mean in the name of Jesus. We claim to be sitting at the king’s table,but the whole thing is largely unappetizing to the watching world. We put up unnatural boundaries on who is allowed at the table. We yell at the help for doing the work in the wrong way. People walk away from our dinner party and wonder why we are so angry if we are truly dining with the king.
The incarnation is a huge topic, and we will see it crop up time and again in the Gospel of John. I want the incarnation to simplify your life. I want you to be faced with dilemmas in this world and run first to the ownerand ask, “What did he do? How did he answer?” I also want to simplify how you live in this world. If the promise is true that God tabernacles with us, if God’s Spirit lives in us, then all of your decisions about unity, service and sharing your life will get much easier.
In the midst of the Iowa State Fair, one candidate didn’t try to look like us. He didn’t bow to the façade of one day among usthen leaving us. His whole shtick is to make sure you know he isn’t like you, he is better, and that is why you should vote for him. To prove that, he flew in on a helicopter that was “yuge” and had 24-karat seat belts. He took a few lucky kids up for a ride. His whole MO is to rise above so we can’t help but elect him in all of his glory. Jesus did quite the opposite. Not only did he walk our streets and breathe our air, he stooped down below us and washed our feet. God-made-flesh stooped down for us. This would be a pattern for his entire ministry. That is our God. That is his character and his likeness. That is the King and we should be inclined to invite as many as possible to dine with us at his table.