- The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
The Covid epidemic has shown that we need physical contact with others. It is much more important for us than we usually recognise and realise. A virtual hug on Zoom is not a real hug. Even face time on the internet does not give us face to face contact with others. But when we are bodily present with our family and friends we actually communicate ourselves far more fully than any other way. We show our love and affection best when we are in physical touch and interact with them. So we value their real presence with us, because we receive so much from our physical association and contact with them.
Imagine two people who were married but decided to live in a virtual relationship. They stayed in touch with each other via the internet and visited each other occasionally, but never actually lived together under the same roof.
They lived apart from each other to escape the wear and tear and daily demands of physical cohabitation. We all know that, even though they, would most certainly, avoid some trouble by their remote relationship, they would miss out on what marriage was all about: the actual face to face physical interaction with each other.
Sadly most people would like to have nothing more than a virtual relationship with God. Because they don’t want him to check up on them, they are happy for him to stay far away from them on earth. They don’t want to have him living under the same roof as them and cohabiting with them. So they miss out on his blessings, the good things that he has to offer and share with him here on earth.
At Christmas we celebrate God’s ongoing cohabitation with us. Even though we had distanced ourselves from God, he did not distance himself from us. Instead he got down and dirty with us by making his dwelling with us. He sent his Son to bridge the gap between him and us and re-establish bodily contact with us. Through the physical birth of Jesus he got into physical touch with us and stays in physical touch with us even in our troubles. Amazingly, he now interacts with us physically through his Son.
St John says: 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. God’s Son became a human person without ceasing to be God. He entered Mary’s womb, took on a human body, had a human birth, and joined our human race. He grew up just like us and saw our world with human eyes, walked on earth like us and lived like us, suffered and died as we do. By his physical life and death and resurrection Jesus has once again united us with God. He has reopened heaven for us here on earth. He is the physical window that lets the bright light of eternity shine into the dark world that we live in. He is the physical bridge between heaven and earth, God the heavenly Father and people on earth. He is the physical way by which we have access to God the Father here on earth in worship and prayer. By faith in him we begin to live heavenly lives here on earth in anticipation of the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life with him in heaven.
- Why does God’s Son make his dwelling among us?
St John tells us that God’s Son came to stay with us always, in order to deliver the Father’s blessings to us: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…the One and Only Son… came from the Father, full of grace and truth…From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. The bodily life of Jesus did not end with his death, resurrection and ascension. Those events were the beginning of his ongoing, hidden physical cohabitation with us here on earth as our Immanuel, our God with us. By living with us he shares himself and all that he has with us, just as married people share themselves and all that they have by their lifelong cohabitation with each other.
By becoming a flesh and blood man he made his dwelling with us. The human body that he received from Mary has become God’s temple for us, the place where God meets with us and we meet with God. The body of Jesus is the place where he makes the Father known to us. It is the place where God the Father reaches out to us physically on earth to give us one blessing after another. It is the place where we can receive gift after gift after gift from God by faith in him and his physical presence with us.
When St John says that God’s Son made his dwelling among us, he recalls the temple in Jerusalem where God resided in the Holy of Holies. There God’s glory, his visible presence, was hidden in a dark cloud. He hid his glory there in that cloud to reach out to his people and bless them, without intimidating them with his awesome dazzling holiness.
The resurrected body of Jesus is now the new temple, the place where God the Father comes to us and blesses us. By his body he is at home with us so that we can be physically at home with him. His body is the place where we receive the Holy Spirit and every other heavenly, spiritual blessing from him:
the blessing of forgiveness and acceptance; the blessing of peace and joy; the blessing of help and healing; the blessing of comfort and support; the blessing of guidance and encouragement; the blessing of vitality and energy; the blessing of protection and deliverance from the devil and all the powers of darkness.
- Well how does Jesus deliver blessing upon blessing to you?
First Jesus dwells with you here in this and every place of worship. He says: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Whenever you gather here for worship in this congregation or any other place of worship, Jesus is present with you. Here he interacts with you physically through physical means. By the water of baptism Jesus joins your bodies with his body and shares his divine life bodily with you: there you became one flesh with him like a wife with her husband. Through the mouth and words and hands of his ministers he forgives you, blesses you, and assures you that your heavenly Father is well-pleased with you. Through the bread and wine in HC he gives himself to you physically with his body and blood and brings you physically into the presence of his heavenly Father.
So here you have Jesus physically with you. Here Jesus, who is full of grace and truth, makes himself physically available to you so that you can hear and see, smell and taste and touch him. Here you receive grace upon grace, one blessing after another from him. Here you get a glimpse him and his hidden glory with the eyes of faith.
Second, Jesus dwells with you in the people who make up this congregation. By joining you physically to his body, Jesus joins you bodily to each other here on earth. You are the temple of the living God, an outpost of heaven, the place where God gives physical access to himself and his blessings here in Glenelg. Here God’s Son is enfleshed among you. Here he is hidden for you in the people who sit on the pews around you, all the people who sing and pray and interact with you each Sunday. Here he meets with you and brings his blessings to you through them and your physical association with them.
- The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. And from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.
The joy of Christmas can disappear from us all too quickly, leaving us little or nothing to sustain us for the rest of the year. But don’t let that happen to you as you begin the New Year. Enjoy his cohabitation with you and stay in physical touch with him in 2024. Come to Jesus each Sunday and reach out to him every day in your prayers. Come to your Immanuel to receive one blessing after another from him for your life in the body here on earth. Live with him under an open heaven as he lives with you and in you here on earth to prepare you and your mortal bodies for life with him in heaven. So rejoice as you sing:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail, the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.
God the Father, the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Jesus, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
