‘And the Word became flesh’

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1). A minister waiting for his flight was spending some of his time browsing in the airport gift shop. He was in a small section of the store that featured patriotic souvenirs and memorabilia. He noticed one particular item that was first an oddity, then an amazement, and finally something of a parable. It was a shiny copper plate kept under glass to keep its polished surface untarnished.

The plate was an engraving of the Declaration of Independence, the birthright and heritage of all Americans. As the man began to peruse further down the glass case, he glanced back and his perspective on the copper plate was changed: He began to see a face within the words of the Declaration. It was the face of George Washington looking back at him! Altering the breadth, then the narrowness, of the letters of the Declaration’s words, in a sort of calligraphy fashion, the artist had created the details of the face of our nation’s first president within this most cherished document.

Telling the story, the minister commented: “Noble words became the face of a person, and I would have missed the point of the artist’s effort if I had not seen the face. Sublime ideals reduced to a written text dissolved into human persona. A revered text became someone I knew. Only as I reflected on it later did I realize how perfectly it illustrates a central truth of the Christian faith.”

The Bible is God’s revelation of himself in the person and work of Christ. If we read the Word of God as merely a library of statutes and case studies, we reveal our own impoverished understanding of the Bible. We are reading and interpreting it correctly only when we see beyond the words the breadth of God’s mercy and the power of His love—when through the text we behold the face of Christ. This is what John meant when he wrote, “The Word became flesh.”

Now, hearing this parable, I want to share with you one more. I believe I recall it being told by Marjorie Suchocki, United Methodist professor emerita of theology at Claremont School of Theology. Marjorie was arriving for an appointment at a church that incorporated a beautiful, if small, stone sanctuary. Arriving early in the morning, she entered the sanctuary, and there, on the front of the Lord’s Table, illumined by the morning sun streaming through a large stainedglass window at the rear of the sanctuary, was an arresting image/likeness of the Christ.

Desiring to better appreciate the artist’s beatific work, she walked back outside to see the exterior of the window, but no image of Jesus was in the glass. Instead, Marjorie saw several small, stained-glass images of individual Christians. Some lifting hands in worship, a few serving meals to others, people washing feet, individuals preaching, a choir singing, helpers bandaging the injured, witnesses knocking on doors, strangers lifting the fallen, others kneeling in prayer.

In one parable, one beholds the Christ of God through the words of Holy Scripture. In another “stained glass parable” work of art, one perceives the Christ of God through the loves and devotions of scores of Christ’s followers.

John proclaimed, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” You miss the Spirit’s effort if you do not see the Face of the Holy within the words of the Bible.

You mi s s the Spi r it’s effort if you do not see Christ in the loving actions of others. Adeline Pollard composed: “Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see Christ only, always, living in me!”