The Blog of St. Mark

The Word became flesh

• Order of Service: Divine Service II (CW: Supplement)
• Lessons: Isaiah 52:7-10, Hebrews 1:1-9, John 1:1-14
• Hymns: 55, 62, 750 (1, 5-6), 35, 61

In the name of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

After church, on your way out, we’ll shake hands, or, as some say, we’ll press the flesh.

Then some of you will go somewhere for lunch, a nap, some football or basketball, and maybe seeing some extended family, your flesh and blood.

I’ll be getting on a plane later this afternoon and flying up to Minnesota, so that I can be with my family face to face, in person, you know, in the flesh.

Here we’ve found another of those words that has many possible meanings depending on usage and context:  flesh.  The Bible uses that word – sarx in the Greek – in a variety of ways as well.  Paul uses it a couple of times in Romans to refer to his fellow Jews, those of his own flesh.  Once Jude uses it to describe the sin of Sodom, they went after strange flesh (Jude 7, KJV).  Just a verse earlier in John 1, John uses it to talk about the sexual desires that lead to conception.  Often it refers to our sinful nature, as in Galatians 5, Now the works of the flesh are manifest… (Galatians 5:19, KJV).  But it also often refers to what we most commonly think of when we hear the word flesh:  bodies, skin, living creatures, humans, people.

And so, The Word became flesh.  Which of those meanings did John mean?  Start with the simplest.  The Word, the Word that was in the beginning, the Word that was with God, the Word that was God, the Word that created all things, the Word that holds up all things became flesh.  A body.  Skin.  A living creature.  A human.  A person.  A man.  The Nicene Creed says:  For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and became fully human.  Meanwhile, the almost equally eld Athanasian Creed confesses, We believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and man.  He is God, eternally begotten from the nature of the Father, and he is man, born in time from the nature of his mother, fully God, fully man, with rational soul and human flesh.

Now stop and understand what that means.  The Word became flesh.  This flesh!  My flesh!  Your flesh!  The eyes and ears and mouth and nose, the hands and feet and legs, the brains and lungs and guts that we have, He had, Jesus had, God had.  He became flesh!  Our flesh!  He united Himself to us!  And lived among us, dwelt among us, took up residence among us.  A ghost or phantom He was not, but the real thing, the real deal, in the flesh, flesh and blood.  God made this transition, He became flesh.

Again, it’s my flesh, this flesh.  And I know all about this flesh.  Sometimes I want to peel it off, it bothers me so much.  I want to trade it in for some new flesh, some clean flesh, because of what I’ve put it through.  And this is the flesh that Jesus became?  Really!  I pray that’s not the case, because if His flesh is like my flesh, oy!  But He really became this flesh.  He was not ashamed to call [us] brothers (Hebrews 2:11, HCSB).  The Father sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3, KJV).  Like us in every way.  The Word became flesh.  Real flesh.  Our flesh.  In the flesh.  Flesh and blood and body and soul.  Tested and tempted.  Shackled by the weaknesses that shackle us.  Yet still, at the very same time the Word, God, eternal, immortal, sinless.

He did this.  He became poor.  He made Himself nothing.  He appeared in a body.  He shared in our humanity.  And He showed Himself to us.  He showed us the glory of God, from a manger-bed to a final resting place.  From the lap of His mother, to the arms of the cross.  He showed us by becoming flesh, taking on flesh, sacrificing flesh, resurrecting flesh.  His flesh.  That rarity of rarities:  perfect flesh.  For our flesh.

You know Isaiah 53 almost like the back of your hand.  You know it, because you hear it every Lent, especially on Good Friday, and when we sing hymns like “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” or “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth.”  But really, Isaiah 53 is a Christmas text, because it’s a text about the incarnation, about the Word becoming flesh.  Listen to the Spirit speak through Isaiah and understand how necessary Christmas, the Word becoming flesh, the incarnation, being born of the virgin Mary was.  Everything God had in mind revolved around the Word becoming flesh.  Listen to Isaiah with Christmas ears::

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.  By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.  Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.  After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.  For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isaiah 53:1-12, NIV84).

Jesus became that flesh.  For you.  He took on His flesh what makes your flesh sinful flesh.  And emerged as pure and as holy as He was on the day He became flesh – thus condemning sin in sinful man, thus removing the sting and victory from death and grave.

And Jesus remains that flesh now in ascended glory.  He became flesh once.  He’ll come in the flesh again.  And the Word made flesh sent out His apostles to tell us that those who believe in Him will be like Him, that He’ll transform believer’s lowly bodies so that they’ll be like His glorious body.  No wonder Paul says every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.  God became one of us, so that we could become His sons and Jesus’ brothers. Amen.