The Word Became Flesh

"The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” This is the event that makes these days holy. We rightly call the Christmas season the holi-days not because these days are particularly pleasurable (though they often are) nor because the family and friends with whom we celebrate are inherently divine (though they are blessings that can point to the Divine One). No, we rightly call Christmas a holi-day because it recalls the holy day when “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” When the Word of God took on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, common and ordinary stuff such as human flesh and this world’s daily turning became truly holy.

Peter learned this Christmas lesson when he had a vision of a sheet filled with various non-kosher animals. (Acts 10:9-16) The Lord commanded Peter to “kill and eat,” but Peter resisted defiling himself with things that he still saw as unclean (read: not holy). The Lord then told Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15) This lesson is then extended beyond non-kosher food to non-kosher people. The Gentile centurion named Cornelius came to Peter, and Peter explained to him the implications of the Word becoming flesh: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.” (Acts 10:28)

And so, because the Word became flesh, these days are indeed holi-days. Moreover, because the Word became flesh, our neighbors are holy people. By all appearances they might be common, impure, unholy, etc. Nevertheless, they were made in God’s own image and they were “made clean” when the Word of God assumed human flesh in Jesus. That is why to love them is to love God, and to hate them is to hate God. It’s true: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

Alas, the day on which the Word became flesh is not merely a past event that we commemorate on Christmas. No, the Word continues to take on human flesh; Jesus Christ still lives among us bodily in two interrelated ways. First, Jesus’ body is among us in the Meal called Holy Communion. It is just as He said: “Take, eat; this is my body.” (Matthew 26:26) Second, Jesus’ body is still among us as the church, as the people who gather around the Meal in faith, hope, and love. We need not go looking around aimlessly for some abstract presence of God in the world. He lives among us concretely in the Meal and in the people made holy by that Meal.

The Christmas miracle might appear rather common when we look at the ordinary bread and wine of Communion and at the ordinary people who constitute the church. But to the eyes of faith, these things and these people are holy beyond measure. Said differently, to the ones who believe God’s Word, these things and these people are the very presence of God living among us. They are to be loved not out of some phony piety wrought out of compulsion. No, they are to be loved because they are the continued presence of God in the flesh, and because God and His gifts are lovely.