THE BEAT e117 The Word Became Flesh

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 2 Episode 117 

THE BEAT | The Word Became Flesh 

Quick Take 

Hey human, in this episode we celebrate God Incarnate by hearing John Chapter 1, that “the Word became flesh” and consider timelines of two Johns and Jesus. How their witness empowered God’s plan. Before and after the resurrection. The gift here: how “witness” is defined and how John’s prologue is a bridge to 2025. His Word. My flesh. Like John the Baptist. Like John the fisherman turned apostle. Like me and you. Take 15 to listen.

How has God shown up for you today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host. 

I can’t imagine that on this day, the day this episode is published that even nonbelievers think about Jesus once. Merry Christmas.

I think of Jesus today as a humble heart swaddled in the Father’s glory.

I said in episode 116 that we would celebrate the final episode of 2024 with a reading of the gospel of John Chapter 1, the prologue, when “the word became flesh.” When Jesus came down to us.I will return to this in the coming year, but here is a spiritual seed to tend for now. It is a helpful preface to his prologue. In J.I. Packer’s book, Knowing God, he illuminates that in the first four verses we see the “Word’s” eternity, personality, deity and the “Word’s” acts of creating, animating and revealing. Then Packer brings it to verse 14, “the Word became flesh”, the “Word” incarnate. He says, “The baby in the manger is none other than the Word of God.” Packer goes on to say: “And now having shown us who and what the Word is—a divine Person, author of all things—John indicates an identification. The Word, he tells us, was revealed by the Incarnation to be God’s Son.”

And so.

John 1: 1-14

 

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

John, John, and Jesus

I have to stop here. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” Something happened to me at this point in my reading. Verse 6 just stopped me cold, in the center of asking myself why the apostle John would bring up another man right at this moment. And I had to sort it out, the timeline, for when both Johns lived. That the Holy Spirit was prompting me about a spiritual truth in this, that I should share. That his reference is as much about the Christmas message as all the songs, celebrations, messages that bring this day to now.

The “man” the apostle John refers to in verse 6 is the son of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth; Luke tells us about how we know this, the verses that prophesied about their relationship, and the omniscient power of our timeless God to master His plan in the lives of humans. 

Luke :39-45

³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

John (the Baptist) and Jesus do not actually meet in the Gospel narratives until, as two grown men, John baptizes Jesus in the River Jordan. John the Baptist is martyred at age 32. Before Jesus dies on the cross. The Greek word martyr means “witness” and/or “one who gives testimony.”

There are no scripture references that they played together as children. Not surprising. We have very little information chronicling Jesus’ young life until he is left behind at the temple at age 12.

The apostle John was born in 6 AD and thought to have lived to 100 AD. He was an apostle of Jesus, having met Jesus while he was working as a fisherman alongside his brother James and their father Zebedee. This apostle, this John was the only apostle at the cross of Jesus the day he died for humanity. This apostle is the one Jesus entrusted the care and love of this earthly mother to. He is the only apostle said to not have been martyred, this John is widely accepted as having written the Gospel of John, the three letters, and Revelation.

And this John stopped and noted that God sent a man. And he defines what being a witness is in this prologue. Listen to the power of simplicity. The power of divine truth.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

So, when John the Baptist leapt at hearing Mary come into Elizabeth’s house with Jesus in the womb, he was bearing witness to the coming Savior. And there we have Psalm 139, that God has known us before the universe was created.

When John the Baptist was born, named John, and began to grow, and when Jesus, the Son of God was born to our Mary, a virgin, and Joseph, an obedient man, and they began to grow as very young children, the apostle John was about to be born a few years later, in 6 AD. And God gives us this message through his faithful apostle.

And consider us, now. We are not the light. But we are witnesses to the light. Like John, who baptized. And John, the apostle of Jesus.

The Word Became Flesh

So I continue, John 1:9-14

 

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

 

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

I believe that Jesus Christ, the baby we celebrate is my Savior, and I am spending the rest of my earthly life calling Him “Lord.”

During this month I have been sharing that the meditations of my heart this Christmas are focused on three words:  before, when, and become.

Before Jesus was swaddled. And that the manger marks the origin of divine empathy for humanity.

Like John the Baptist, my witness comes before Jesus in the life of the non-believer. Before a non-believer’s conviction of the heart. His light helps us light the way for someone who is living in darkness.

And the second word. When. When Jesus came down. He made himself nothing and humbled himself by becoming obedient to death.

The Apostle John tells us that when someone believes in His name, that person becomes a child of God. Born of God. And it started when Jesus came down the birth canal. A baby at the beginning of an earthly journey, the same way we each start our lives.

Christmas Day is about when. My entire life is about when I bear witness to the light.

His Word. My Flesh. I am Witness to the Light.

And, my third word, Become.

Become poor. I shared…

2 Corinthians 8:9

9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

 

Through His poverty.

Listen in next week, episode 118, the first episode of 2025. It’s not about resolutions. It’s not about my resolution. I don’t have resolutions. Why? Am I perfect? (surely you aren’t really thinking that I think that…)

I don’t have resolutions because:

God has resolved everything in my life through the birth of His Son. Merry Christmas, Kathryn.

Merry Christmas, human.

Episode 117 is about…

Something much deeper, more enduring because I love a timeless God.

Something further into the divine side of “a new heaven and a new earth” because I need a reachable Savior.

Something that God, my father, and Jesus His Son is planning deep within my soul because I follow His guiding Holy Spirit. Through the poverty of Jesus.

So, here comes my davar in the midbar. Don’t know what that is? It’s Hebrew for… well, listen in. Give your entree into the new year 15 minutes to find out. Because I have seen His glory, and I quote:

John 1:14:

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

His Word. My flesh.