THE WORD BECAME FLESH

   The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell the Christmas story in chapters and verses. The Gospel of John says simply “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” No more needed to be said because that said it all. It did then and it still does. God became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Meat was put on the Word.

   Meat still must be put on the word, on the words of Scripture. They have to come to life, be enfleshed, for us to be able to truly grasp their meaning, for us to understand God and God’s word in the same way as it was necessary for God to become enfleshed for God to understand us. The words of Scripture are not merely words or concepts or ideas. They are not simply for philosophical speculation or a bunch of theological jargon. They are that and for that, but they are much, much more.

   Words like grace and love and forgiveness have wonderful theological definitions. Philosophical treatises doctoral dissertations have been written on them. We can explain and explore, define and decipher their meanings until the cows come home. But until we experience grace and love and forgiveness in our own lives, we will never truly understand what they mean. Never. It is simply impossible otherwise.

   The same is true with all of Scripture and not just certain words or concepts we find therein. We read Scripture. We may have memorized large chunks of it and can tell many of the parables in Jesus’ own words; but what we read there has no real meaning until it comes alive in us, in the world around us. Those parables, for instance, must become personal, must become part of us, must be enfleshed in us; otherwise they really have no meaning. Truly.

   I love what Barbara Brown Taylor has written: “I have arrived at a different understanding of what it means to follow the Word of God. The phrase has become a double entendre for me, meaning not only the Word on the page but also (and more crucially) the Word made flesh. If Jesus’ own example is to be trusted, then following the Word of God may not always mean doing what is in the book. Instead, it may mean deviating from what is in the book in order to risk bringing the Word to life and then facing the dreadful consequences of loving the wrong people even after you have been warned time and again to stop.” (Christian Century, 10/18/03 )

   Jesus loved those whom no one else loved and he was able to do so because he personally encountered them, spent time with them, touched them. Love and grace and forgiveness and understanding, all of Scripture, including the Law, were enfleshed in him and became alive in him as he lived among the people of his time.

   Jesus was always less concerned about what the Law said, what Scripture said, because he was more concerned about bringing Scripture to life, enfleshing it. In doing so he brought life to the people who were often persecuted or condemned because others used Scripture as a weapon to control and
not an instrument of love. Unfortunately that still happens today, but it doesn’t have to and won’t if the word becomes flesh in us.                                                            WJP