SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS 
2 January 2005 – Rev'd Robert Willson  

THE UNFOLDING MYSTERY

THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US, FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH. John 1:14

This sentence explains why John wrote the Fourth Gospel. John tells us quite simply that the Word of God, that Word which created the world, that Word which controls the order of the world, has become a person, has taken human flesh, and with our own eyes we saw him. Jesus of Nazareth is the living Word of God. 

To Greek and Roman thinkers, this was a shatteringly new and radical idea. To Greek philosophers like Plato, the body was evil, a prison house in which the soul was shackled. Marcus Aurelius despised the body in comparison with the spirit. They would be shocked and amazed at such an idea. 

We ceaselessly ask: Is there a God? What is he like? What does he do? In these words from our Gospel reading far the Second Sunday after Christmas John gives us his answer: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us....". No wonder Willie Barclay said that far him that was the most important verse in the Bible. 

In The Forsyte Saga, Galsworthy pictures a family gathering to bury the family dog. Balthasar, beloved by all the family. A young boy is puzzled and asks his father, "Do you believe in God?". Father replies that of course he does if by God one means the power behind everything and the sum of human altruism. The son replies, "That leaves out Christ, doesn't it?" Father thinks to himself: out of the mouths of babes      The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

To come to grips with such a profound truth will always leave an element of mystery. Anyone who claims to fully understand it is lying. Charles Wesley wrote: "Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man." We cannot fully understand but we simply bow in adoration. We need not fear a mystery. 

G. K. Chesterton was a remarkable poet and writer and thinker who became a Catholic Christian. Trying to describe what God taking human flesh in the farm of Jesus really meant, he wrote: `GOOD NEWS, BUT IF YOU ASK ME WHAT IT IS, I KNOW NOT.  IT IS A TRACK OF FEET IN THE SNOW. IT IS A LANTERN SHOWING A :PATH. IT IS A DOOR SET OPEN'

Here Chesterton uses four simple vivid images to describe the indescribable. Allan Bowers, an English preacher, asks us to think about them, and I am in debt to his ideas.

A) GOOD NEWS Gad has come among us and pitched his tent. He is writing his autobiography in flesh and blood. That means that in the struggles of our human lives, the pain and frustration and weakness, as well as the joys and hopes, he understands because he is part of it. 

In World War II a line of trucks advancing along a narrow, muddy road, came to a halt because one truck at the head of the line was bagged. A large group of soldiers gathered, pushing and shoving to free it. Among them was a figure taped in a gas mask, pushing with the rest. Only when the job was done did he push back his cape and they saw the divisional commander. At that moment he was in the thick of it. So with God, for he is not remote from us but pushing and struggling with us all. 

B) TRACKS OF FEET IN THE SNOW. When we see the tracks we know that someone has passed by. W H Auden wrote: "You cannot see God where he is, only the footprints after he has passed" When Robinson Crusoe saw the footprint of a man in the sand he knew he was not alone on the island. When he and the refugee from the cannibals finally met, he called him MAN FRIDAY. Is not Christ the one who comes to us in the farm of a servant and is the Man for others and the one who died on Friday for us? His footprints are in the sands of time. 

C) A LANTERN SHOWING A PATH. In our world we have lost the vivid impact of a lantern an a dark night. As a child I lived on a lonely property in the middle of the Warrumbungles. When we saw a light slowly coming up the track in the darkness there was both fear and expectation. Christ is the light of the world and of our personal lives and we need not fear that light. Anne Bronte had a deep love of God. She was once asked if her happiness came from the beauty of nature. She replied, no, rather: "It was a glimpse of truths divine unto my spirit given. ..Illumined by a ray of light that shone direct from heaven" ? Would we say that? 

D) AN OPEN DOOR This is the final image that Chesterton uses to explain how God took human flesh. Christmas means the open door. Family and friends are welcome. In some of our parishes the Church doors were open on Christmas day to provide a meal for the lonely and homeless. The door of the inn in Bethlehem was NOT open to the Christ Child on the first Christmas eve, but he himself said "I am the door, if anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture" 

His invitation remains as we enter this new year. Will we accept it? AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US

FOR READING: Wisdom and  a life of G G K Chesterton by Joseph Pearce (Hodder 1996 JOHN (Daily Study Bible) by William Barclay