"The Christmas Collision"

Some of us have experienced collisions this year, both literal and figurative. Illness, loss, financial problems all are the sorts of things I mean. We are cruising along and suddenly we run into an obstacle—or an obstacle runs into us. We are left wondering: “Why this—why now? What is God doing?”

And that is why this year I chose to focus on the Prelude to John rather than one of the more traditional Christmas passages from Luke or Matthew. The Gospels of Luke and Matthew give the details surrounding the birth of Jesus, but John provides us with the meaning, or explanation. John does not use a narrative but instead gives us the theology behind the nativity.

I want to focus on just one verse today from the Gospel of John. John 1:14 is one of the most startling verses in the Bible because it describes another Christmas collision. Word for word, I can’t think of a better explanation of what happened in the manger in Bethlehem: “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.”

The Collision of Deity and Humanity

A grandfather was visiting his grandson one Christmas when he walked into the family room and saw the toddler standing up in his playpen, crying. His face was red and tear-stained. When little Jeffy saw his granddad, his face lit up and his hands reached out for help as he pleaded, “Out, papa, out!” What grandfather could resist this plea? And so he walked over to the playpen and reached down to lift his little buddy out of captivity.

Just then, however, “Law and Order” stepped into the room with a dishtowel in her hand and spoke sternly, “Jeffy, you know better. You’re being punished. Leave him right there, dad.” And she marched back out of the room.

The grandfather didn’t know what to do. Jeffy’s tears and outstretched hands tugged at his heart, but he didn’t want to interfere with a mother’s discipline either. He couldn’t stand being in the same room and not being able to do anything but he couldn’t leave without feeling like a traitor.

Grandpa then had an idea. Since he couldn’t take Jeffy out of the playpen, he decided to climb in with him. That’s a pretty good picture of what Jesus did for us--He climbed in with us.

The first part of verse 14 says that the “Word became flesh” This is the single, most unique quality of Christianity that makes it different from any other religion: God became flesh. Jesus is the visible word of God. Theologians call this truth the Incarnation. The infinite second person of the Trinity, who created all things according to John 1:1, became a soft baby. That’s a staggering thought. The Son did not cease to be God when He became a man. He added manhood but He did not subtract deity. He was fully God and fully man. He was the God-man. The collision of deity and humanity had its full expression in Jesus.

Do you remember the movie “O God!” starring George Burns and John Denver? The movie was theologically distorted and irreverent in parts. But there’s one section that stood out to me. In the scene, George Burns makes an appearance to the supermarket manager, dressed as an old man, wearing tennis shoes and a fishing hat. When asked why he looks the way he does, Burns answers, “I picked a look you could understand.” That’s a pretty good description of the birth at Bethlehem. God picked a look we could understand by having His Son born as a human being.

While Jesus probably didn’t wear a fishing cap, he hung around a group of men that may have. He no doubt smelled of fish. His hands were calloused from years of handling rough lumber. His skin was tanned from the Middle Eastern sun. He was human in every way we are and yet was without sin. The Incarnation not only means that we can understand God better but God understands us, because He became one of us.

The Message translation renders the first part of John 1:14 this way: “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” For 33 years God moved into our neighborhood. The NIV says that Jesus “made his dwelling among us,” which literally means, “to make one’s tent.” When we would camp at campsites growing up, we would always get to know the other campers around us. In fact, it’s difficult to be private when you’re camping. Everyone can see what you’re doing. To say that Jesus pitched a tent implies that He wants to be on familiar terms with us. He wants to be close. He wants a lot of interaction.

“Dwelling” is the same word used for “tabernacle” in the Old Testament. The tabernacle was a portable tent where the glory of God dwelt in the days before the Temple was built in Jerusalem. The tabernacle was called the tent of meeting in Exodus 33:7: “Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.’”

There are at least three ways that the tent of meeting corresponds to Jesus “dwelling among us.”

1.   The tabernacle was God’s dwelling place. God lived in the midst of Israel’s camp, making His throne between the cherubim on the mercy seat. Likewise, God had his dwelling place in the body of Jesus.

2.   The tabernacle was the place where God met with His people. In the same way, but in a much deeper sense, Jesus is the place where we meet God today.

3.   The tabernacle was the place where sacrifice was made. The animals were killed and their blood became atonement for sin. So it is with Jesus. His cross became the altar where Mary’s little lamb was slain, where His blood was shed, and where complete atonement was made for sin.

The Collision of Grace and Truth

The first collision is between deity and humanity and is expressed precisely in Jesus. The second collision is between grace and truth and is exhibited perfectly in Jesus. Take a look at the last part of John 1:14: “…who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The apostle John knew Jesus just about as well as anyone. When groping for words to describe Him, John said, “I’ll tell you this, He’s full of grace and truth.” One translation puts it this way: “He is generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”

Grace and truth are two concepts that don’t often appear together. As humans we tend to err on one side or the other. If we stress grace, we can be too quick to forgive and cut slack. If we judge too harshly, we make forgiveness impossible. Jesus was—

1.   Full of grace. Jesus dealt graciously with people He met, especially those who were reeling from moral or physical train wrecks. Grace is overwhelming kindness, good will and favor. It’s a special kind of tenderness. Parents brought children to Him and He blessed them. The leper came wanting to be healed and Jesus made him clean. The woman caught in adultery was not condemned but was instead given grace as she was told to “go and sin no more.” The disabled, the discouraged, the disenfranchised, and the down-and-outers grabbed every chance to be near Him.

2.   Full of truth. Jesus was truth personified because He fully permeated perfection, knowledge, wisdom and excellence. All that He spoke was truth. All that He did was truth. All that He thought was truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. And, because He is full of truth, He spoke truth to those who needed to hear it. To the religious people who reacted angrily to His grace, there was nothing left but hard truth in Matthew 23:33: “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” He delivered truth to those who had turned His father’s house into a den of thieves, overturning their tables and benches.

With Jesus you can always count on both truth and grace. He tells the truth about your life and your situation, and then His grace causes Him to stick with you all the way. Jesus loves me enough to spell out my sinfulness. I love what Max Lucado says: “God loves me just the way I am (that’s grace), but He loves me too much to let me stay that way (that’s truth)”.

Through no merit of my own, He offers His incomparable kindness and forgiveness by sacrificing Himself as the penalty for my rebellion. Because He was full of grace, He died for you and me while we were yet sinners. Because He was full of truth, He was able to pay for our sins completely.

Larry Libby puts it this way: “He is truth. He is grace. In His truth, Jesus tells me the real story about my life and where I stand. He tells me I am spiritually dead, booked on a one-way flight to hell, incapable of achieving heaven on my own power, incapable of lifting myself out of the despair of an empty life or releasing myself from the iron chains of habitual sin. In His grace, Jesus loves me, seeks me, calls me, redeems me, walks with me through the hours of the day, and stands guard over my slumbers at night.” (Discipleship Journal, Issue 126, 2001)

At Christmas we’re reminded of the Word that became flesh and made His dwelling among us. Jesus has the perfect ability to tell us the awful truth about ourselves while holding us up by His grace. The manger is filled with the awesomeness of God’s grace but we’re also reminded of a terrible truth: because of our sin, Jesus Christ came to die for us. Because He is full of grace, you can come to Him just as you are, without having to clean up your act first. And because He is full of truth, you can come in complete confidence knowing that He will keep His promise to forgive you and grant you eternal life.

That’s grace and that’s truth. Without both working together, we would have neither. Because He’s God in the flesh, there’s no conflict in this collision.

The Collision Between Self and the Savior

The final collision is found in the middle section of John 1:14: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only.” John is here using the third person pronoun, “we” to show that the disciples had the privilege of seeing the glory of God as exhibited in Jesus. The word “seen” is a rich word, which means, “to carefully scrutinize.” It’s the idea of scanning, or examining, in order to understand.

Every year we’re invited to consider the Christ of Christmas, to study the Savior of the world, to deliberate about the Deity, and to come to some conclusions. You can only learn by looking. John became a witness because he allowed himself to be wowed by the incarnation.

No one ever met the Savior and stayed the same. This Christmas you’re faced with a collision. It’s the collision between yourself and the Savior. What do you see when you look at the Christmas cradle? Do you see His glory? Do you see tenderness and truth? Do you see the deity in diapers?

The real conflict is one that is deeply personal. Some of us may have been hit with some pretty bad stuff this year and you’re still reeling. Maybe you’ve been keeping Christ at arm’s length. Others of you know what you need to do, but you don’t want to surrender yourself to the Savior. You’re still trying to do it all by yourself. The message of Christmas is that you don’t have to any longer. Jesus is here. He’s God in flesh. He’s pitched His tent among us so that we can get to know Him and forever be changed by Him.