“The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.” (John 1:14)
We’ve already discovered, in this first chapter, that John will repeat an important point several times in order to be sure that the Reader gets it. He obviously wants us to know; really know, that the “Word,” “God,” lived as a human here among us. This is the 5th time he’s said it. At first he writes, “In Him was life; life that made sense of human existence.” Then he tells us that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness neither obscures it nor sees it.” This light, “the true light that enlightens every man,” he insists, “was coming into the world.” Once he arrived, John laments, “the world did not know Him.”
This time, however, he writes in shockingly bold language. “The Word became flesh.” We humans can easily spiritualize almost any idea, or concept. Light is ethereal. A sensible life can become the stuff of fiction and beyond believable. But “flesh?” That's material. Flesh is touchable. It can be held. Its embrace can be a treasure. Someone we love has an unmistakable fragrance. They can be seen. The impression of their image or the sound of their voice is a way we know them. “God,” John thunders, “materialized.” He became a “flesh and blood,” a “real live human being.”
Do you believe this?
To believe it is to agree to some rather amazing things. To believe Jesus is God, “in the flesh,” is to agree that we now have a live person living the answer to the question, “What was God thinking?” We have a role model. He is living a life just like we are. By observing Him we know what is most important. Most of His life is ordinary. Because it is we know that our ordinary, everyday life is a big deal to God. We learn how to value every person and the simplest things we encounter in our day-to-day experiences. He shows us how to discover the grand in seemingly mundane things and events. With that we find how the extraordinary is often living, disguised in the ordinary. His unparalleled love demonstrates what “TRUE LOVE,” looks like. Because He loved us tirelessly even though it meant suffering we know why God permits pain. We now know how to deal with conflict. This remarkable Man demonstrates, in the real, highly visible destruction of His own life, how God turns tragedy into triumph.
Nothing can happen to you that God cannot use for your good, or the good of all people for that matter. Above all there is nothing you can experience, no matter how painful or seemingly destructive, that He cannot use to bring glory to Himself and demonstrate, to all who observe, that the "Son of Man" is their Hope. Your “vicarious self” is, through Him, indestructible, and ultimately triumphant!
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