Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Friday, January 3, 2014 Read John 1:14 There is no verse of scripture more powerful than this verse – “The Word became flesh and lived among us!” This is a bold claim made by John. He is claiming that in Jesus, God, the Creator, has entered into God’s creation – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” and now “The Word has become flesh.” The Jesus who marches through John’s gospel is fully aware that in him the very being of God is present. Jesus is “from above” as John will soon announce. Jesus comes from God and his journey will lead him back to God. The Jesus who marches through John’s gospel is fully in control of his destiny. That reality is clear from the very beginning of John’s gospel. There is no hiddenness to the claim that Jesus is the Son of God and that it is as the Son of God that Jesus goes about his ministry. John is not the only one who wrestled with this concept. Paul would also claim, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). But John’s claim is clearer and much bolder. In Jesus the very being of God has taken on humanity. John does not attempt to explain this mystery – likely because such an explanation is far beyond our human capacity to comprehend. John simply affirms it and lets it stand there in bold and powerful declaration – “the Word who was, and is God, became flesh and lived among us!” Of course as readers of the other gospels we can’t help but notice that John’s portrait of Jesus is quite different from the portrait of Jesus painted by Mark and by Matthew and Luke who follow him. This is not the Jesus of Mark’s gospel who is anointed with the Spirit at his baptism and must hear the words of God, “You are my beloved Son.” In fact John does not explicitly tells us that John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and we come to that conclusion in John’s gospel mostly because we know it from Mark and the others. This is not the Jesus of Mark’s gospel who must go to the Mount of Transfiguration to learn his destiny in Jerusalem where he will be led to the cross and to death. We will not find even a hint of the Transfiguration story in John’s gospel. This is not the Jesus of Mark’s gospel who will agonizingly struggle in Gethsemane to find and then to do the will of God. John will tell a similar story of Jesus in the Garden but gone is any hint of struggle on the part of Jesus. This is not the Jesus of Mark’s gospel who will finally die upon the cross crying out those anguished words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The Jesus who marches through John’s gospel could never say those words. The Jesus on the cross in John’s gospel remains fully in control of his destiny. We are tempted to ask, “Whose picture of Jesus is right, John’s or Mark’s?” but that is the wrong question. Both pictures are absolutely right! Neither John nor Mark was worried about being a historian providing “just the facts.” Both are preachers proclaiming the Word of God with the one objective that their hearers will come to believe in Jesus. Both are evangelists proclaiming the gospel to their hearers. Each proclaimed their message to a different audience with a different target for their message. We have the added advantage of hearing both. From our vantage point the proclamation becomes even more powerful because we come to realize that the Jesus of Mark’s gospel who cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is none other than the Word made flesh, God incarnate in Jesus, the very being of God in the flesh of Jesus crying out from the cross – God crying out to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Such a thought is far beyond our human ability to comprehend and we are left speechless but somehow we come to believe in that mysterious, precious moment God was bringing salvation to the world and specifically to us. We have the added advantage of hearing John and Mark together! But it is also critically important that we attempt to hear John on his own unhindered by what we hear from Mark and the others. And so from the very beginning we hear John’s gospel from the vantage point that Jesus is the Son of God – that is that the very being of God has taken up residence in the person of Jesus. This is the Jesus who marches through John’s gospel. In actuality, Mark comes to the same conclusion, but he comes to it in a far more subtle way. It is only as the crucified one that Jesus can finally be revealed as the Son of God. Before then he must remain hidden. There is no hiddenness in John’s gospel – “God, the Word, became flesh and lived among us!”