Oftentimes during Advent season and especially at Christmas Eve services, the opening verses in the first chapter of John’s Gospel are read to commemorate the arrival of Jesus as the “Word becoming flesh” for us.  While this is certainly part of the apostle’s meaning and intention in the introduction to his gospel, clearly there is more in this prologue than meets our eyes and minds.  In reality, the Incarnation is more than just God the Son becoming human, as mysteriously wonderful as that is in itself.  In addition, it should be seen in richer dimensions as the permanent and progressive embodiment and advancement of Truth and the personified values of the Kingdom of God into this world’s chaos, darkness and despair.

The Incarnation is not only the arrival of a person—God the Son—into this world, but also the presence of God’s redemptive portal through which His Truth, salvation, Holy Spirit, forgiveness and covenant blessings now flow to us because of the “Immanuel” presence and work of Jesus, God’s Son.  You see this clearly in John 1:16: “from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.”  In greater fullness, the Incarnation is not only the coming of a person—Jesus—but also all the blessings with Him that God the Redeemer wants to give us in His agape love.

We must remember that spiritual darkness aptly described the first century’s culture when Jesus initially came just as much as it describes our present culture.  So, what does it mean when we say that the Gospel shines just as brightly in this culture as it did when Jesus was born?  Let me offer four reflective thoughts:

• For a world of brokenness (then and now), the Gospel offers restoration.  In our day just as in Jesus’ times, the world—with all its people and systems—is broken.  Jesus saw this in the religious political, economic, and social systems of His time, and He spoke out against the travesties and injustices that were seen within them, offering values of a different system—the Kingdom of God—in its place as a viable alternative.  In following Jesus’ steps and example, the church is called to be the Incarnated fullness of Christ to this dark, chaotic world (Colossians 2:9-10).
• For a world of skepticism (then and now), the Gospel offers certainty.  In our day just as in Jesus’ times, the world is filled with doubt and cynicism towards absolute truth and positive values.  Pilate expressed this thought succinctly with his famous rhetorical question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).  He summarized the first century Roman understanding very much like our era’s conception of truth: belief that is socially constructed.  In other words, there is no such thing as Absolute Truth coming down from a lawgiver (God), but rather truth is relative and is formed from human and group opinion.  Naturally, this type of construction only produces doubt, pessimism, uncertainty and an endless array of unsolvable questions.  Jesus saw the futility of life without “true truth” (to use a famous Frances Schaeffer phrase), and He revealed Himself to us as the embodied “Way, Truth, and Life” of God (John 14:6).  Likewise, the church is called to embody Jesus’ Truth and to live/show it in such a way that shows freedom and life in God’s ways (John 8:32).
• For a world of emptiness, the Gospel offers meaning.  In our day just as in Jesus’ times, the world lives under oppression and domination from powers and authorities in the civic, governmental, ecclesiastical, and commercial dimensions of public life.  Often these components of culture delivered structure with hollow substance, promised form with meaningless content, and displayed surface with little stability.  Jesus saw how these dimensions of life produced emptiness and isolation in people, making them “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36), and He offered Himself and His fullness of life in its place as “the Good Shepherd” (John 10:10-11).  Likewise, the church as Jesus’ embodied community of faith and love is called to live with His values and love as a spiritual society where love, forgiveness, value, security and significance is experienced and enjoyed.
• For a world of despair, the Gospel offers hope.  In our day just as in Jesus’ times, people feel like they are daily robbed and/or sapped.  For every step forward that they earn, the world pulls them back two.  Daily life is often endured as a “grind,” offering little value, meaning and significance in the journey.  Just watch the national and/or local news on TV several nights in a row and you’ll see this despair clearly.  Or perhaps attend a local school board or town council meeting and you’ll likely feel an air of pessimism and gloom in the room.  Jesus saw and engaged this kind of despondency in the world, and He showed us that a better way of life (starting with the Beatitudes in Matthew 5) is now possible with God’s values and power at the core of personal life.  By embodying Jesus’ teaching and life under the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, the church can model genuine faith, hope and love in legitimate ways as an attractive alternative to the world’s despair and hopelessness. 

The Incarnation shows us the height, depth, breadth, and richness of God’s life in Jesus Christ, who said in response to the thief’s destruction and stealing, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b).  To a post-Christian darkness and emptiness that daily seeks to destroy and to steal, the Gospel offers light and life.