Sermon Tone Analysis

/The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth/.

Of course we can focus on minutiae and fail to see the beauty presented in the story of God’s love.

Nevertheless, for a moment think of separating the Christmas story into component parts.

If you could place the Christmas event in a test tube, testing its reaction to various tests such as one might conduct in the laboratory, what do you suppose you would discover?

If you were able somehow to dissect that holy season, exposing each component part for careful and minute scrutiny, what do you suppose you would learn?

We are given a perfect revelation of the Living God in the Christian celebration of Christmas, and few writers have done more to reveal the essence of Christmas than has the disciple whom Jesus loved.

Though we are not prone to think of John as one of the Scripture writers who provided a detailed account of the advent of our Lord, he nevertheless made a considerable contribution to our understanding of that holy event.

In reality, John details the heart of Christmas in the opening verses of his Gospel.

In particular, the verse which serves as our text is decidedly a Christmas text which has too long been neglected by both pulpit and pew.

God Became Man is the first thing we learn upon even a casual perusal of the text.

In John's words, The Word became flesh…  With apology neither to unbeliever nor to misguided wannabe believers—The Word is God.

Moreover, this Christ from Whom Christians derive their name and to Whom they look, is the Word of Whom John wrote and is therefore Himself God.

We do not say He ceased to be God, but rather that in Him we witness a unique Being—the God‑man.

This Christ was neither man alone divested of all the attributes of the Divine nor was He God separated and aloof from man.

We do not see Him revealed as demigod stationed somewhere between man and God; but He is revealed at once both as God and as man.

This is the ancient and unceasing declaration which has defined the Christian Faith from earliest days.

Without belabouring the point, yet daring not to overlook the need to provide sound instruction in this vital aspect of the Faith, this is the consistent teaching of the whole of the written Word of God.

Indeed, when John wrote he employed a Greek philosophical concept, introducing readers forthwith to the Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was *with* God, and the Word *was* God [*John 1:1*].

Whatever else may be said of that stunning statement, it is evident that the individual identified as the Word is eternal, for He was in the beginning.

Moreover, The Word was intimately associated with and identified with God, for the Word was with God.

That God was *the Word* (for that is the literal translation of John's Greek [qeo;" h

oJ lovgo"]) is evident from this most specific statement which can be translated in no other way.

Here is an important aside to believers who have suffered through assaults of zealous religious anarchists (Jehovah's Witnesses) at the doors of their own homes.

John's choice of words—without the definite article—is the strongest possible construction for stating qualitatively that *the Word* is God.

It is as if He pointedly stated that *the Word *was by nature God.

He writes of this One who is identified as very God (the Word) that *the Word *became flesh.

The Word burst on the human scene, sharing man's condition of mortality.

Who can fathom such a thought?

Who, in their wildest imaginations, could conceive that God would become as one of His creatures?

Who could dream that the Living God would make Himself helpless, dependent upon a woman's nourishment and reliant upon for her to care for His every need?

In the Christmas story God submitted Himself to the tutelage of a man, learning how to co-ordinate eyes and hands to make such mundane items as yokes and ploughs, and tables and benches.

Before salvation was complete God would know what it was to experience exhaustion, thirst, hunger—experiences common to the flesh.

God would know what it was to be grieved, to experience rejection, to see unfulfilled longing.

Was not the heart of the Saviour broken over His rejection by Israel, the chosen people?

Did He not sorrow at the self‑destructive choices of individuals such as the rich young ruler?

Did He not weep with Mary and Martha at the cruel invasion of death tearing at the soul of a family and insuring that the survivors felt helpless in the face of that final, relentless assault?

Did He not weep over Jerusalem, longing to comfort those within that great city, though the inhabitants would not permit Him to spare them from the consequences of their own wicked choice?

This is a mystery of love we can never explain, though we may indeed experience it.

We may experience the compassionate love of God as we receive this Christ as Master of life.

There is a marvellous paragraph included in the early verses of the Book of Hebrews.

That particular paragraph it affords us insight into God's purpose in this act of becoming one with His fallen creation.

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham's descendants.

For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted [*Hebrews 2:14‑18*].

The corollary of that truth is found just a few short verses away.

Since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need [*Hebrews 4:14‑16*].

This, then, is the Christian Faith.

At a specific point in time, the Word—God—became flesh, fully identifying with man.

God became man.

That is the marvel of Christmas.

God Is Approachable is the second Christmas truth which John has provided us.

We witness this truth when he read of the Word made flesh that He made His dwelling among us.

John's language is expressive in a way that may prove difficult for us to grasp in this day.

He says, rather literally, He tented among us.

Skhnovw, the Greek word here translated by the English phrase made His dwelling, speaks of *living in a tent*, or of *taking up one's temporary dwelling place*.

Emphasise in your mind the transient nature of His earthly body during the time of His presence with us and you will have begun to seize the thrust of John's statement.

Christ was not born to remain forever in the form in which He appeared when He came the first time.

What has this statement to do with God being approachable and willing to receive man into His presence?

In order to answer this question I must refresh your memories with the details of the way and the places in which God was worshiped under the Old Covenant.

Before the Law was given, men worshiped God by approaching Him through sacrifices presented upon an altar.

Those altars were situated in places which filled men with awe and with dread.

As an example of such a place, recall the account of when God made His covenant with Abram, we read that Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him [*Genesis **15:12b*].

The approach of God is associated with dreadful darkness.

Jacob, visited by the angels of God at the place called Bethel, was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place” [*Genesis **28:17a*]!

Those places where man would approach the True and Living God were inevitably places of fear and dread—for there the Most High revealed Himself as great and awesome.

Then, when the Law was given, Moses was instructed to build a Tabernacle—a Tent of Meeting—where man and God would meet through the intermediacy of a high priest.

Though only a rude tent when viewed from the outside, the presence of God sanctified that Tabernacle, making it a place of awe and dread.

Within that Tabernacle was the Holy Place, which in turn was separated from the Most Holy Place.

The Most Holy Place was where none save the high priest was permitted to go, and he was permitted to enter that Most Holy Place but once a year and then only with the blood of atonement.

That innermost sanctuary, lighted by the glory of God and shielded from the gaze of worshipers by the great curtain was a place of mystery and awe.

It is significant that whenever God was resident within that Tent of Meeting a cloud stood over the Tabernacle.

Those who would come near to God would pass into the cloud, just as Moses had to pass through the thick cloud to come to God on Mount Sinai [see *Exodus 19:16‑21*].

The approach to God was awesome and dreadful.

This was manner of approach to the Lord of Glory, the Living God, when the people would meet with Him in the Tabernacle.

When Solomon built the first Temple, the place where God chose to make His dwelling place, that holy edifice became for worshippers a place which inspired awe and dread, just as the Tabernacle had previously been a place of wonder and mystery for worshippers.

Solomon offered up a prayer of dedication, asking and inviting the Most High God to occupy a place built with human hands, though he recognised that The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain You [*2 Chronicles 6:18*].

When that prayer was finished, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the Temple.

The priests could not enter the Temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it.

When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the Temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped [*2 Chronicles 7:1‑3a*].

Wouldn't you fall down?

When God reveals His might and power man involuntarily falls in awe.

The Temple rebuilt after the exile was also a place of reverential fear.

When the Romans secured Jerusalem during the Jewish revolt, however, first Pompey and then Titus entered into the Holy of Holies to see for themselves what made this place held sacred by the Jews special [*Josephus' Wars of the Jews*, I.VII.6 and VI.IV.7].

In neither instance do we read that these pagan warriors were filled with dread or fear as were ancient worshipers; but then, the glory of God had already withdrawn as it had in an earlier day witnessed by Ezekiel.

The glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim.

While I watched, the cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went, the wheels went with them.

They stopped at the entrance to the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them [*Ezekiel 10:18, 19*].

I am compelled to note that there is but one thing more dreadful than the presence of God, and that is when the glory of God has departed that place wherein it was previously found.

The glory of God had long before departed the Temple when the Christ was born and God made His dwelling among us.

Worship of the Lord God had first slipped and then slid into rite and ritual and routine—mere duties mindlessly carried out by supposed specialists.

The body of Jesus Christ, the Word, became the new localisation of God's presence on earth.

When He unveiled His glory, those who worshiped Him were awe-struck, as when He was transfigured [see *Matthew 17:1‑8*].

He was the personification of Isaiah's suffering servant, and just as the Tabernacle was undistinguished from the outside, so of Christ it is fair to say,

 

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,

nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him