Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Christ in Motion

The women's retreat was this weekend. It was a really amazing experience, at least for me. I loved having some time with women that I normally only see for a few minutes each week at church. I hope that the other women found half as much benefit in the weekend as I did. If so, it was a very successful investment of time.

One of the things that we studied was the personhood of Jesus. I know that sounds very basic, but the concept of all God-ness existing in an embryo just doesn't quite fit into my brain. One of the passages that we used was John 1. Again, very basic, but never old.

I realized after our session that I had never considered one aspect of this passage. I understood Jesus as the Word, at least in the tiniest increment of understanding, and the concept of Jesus in the flesh was familiar to me. What I never saw was the motion.

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 All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. (John 1:1-3 CSB)

In the beginning, at Creation, Jesus was the tool that God used to create all things. Jesus was the expression of God's inner way of working and thinking, and through His expression, God was able to speak all things into existence. But the Word was still vague. The Word was a concept of God, a specific utterance of a piece of the whole, but it wasn't touchable. It wasn't physical. You can't put a word into a specific situation and see how it reacts. You can't eat with a word. You can't spend time with a word. A word is here, and then it's gone, and only the memory of it remains. God used words to send His Law, but the Law wasn't enough. Although Christ was the fullness of God from the beginning, we were only able to perceive Him as a Word. He had no flesh.


The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14 CSB)

"The Word became flesh," and when He did, we were able to observe Him. We were able to reside with Him. We saw what God looks like with children on His knee. We saw what God looks like in a storm. We saw how God deals with sin in His temple. We saw how God suffers. We saw how God conquers. We saw God!

I never saw the motion of Christ moving from Word to flesh. What a transformation He went through for us! If God can transform His Son so perfectly into exactly what He desired Him to be, how could I not trust Him to transform me?

3 comments:

andiewade said...

i've been trying to do some bible study from the turkish bible (ummm it's taken me like 3 weeks to read one chapter of galatians, so don't be impressed), but there's a word that's all over the new testament that we don't really have in the english and it's an amazing picture. whenever it says something is done by Christ or by God it uses a word that means "by the agency/intervention/medium of Christ/God." (yes, it's said in one word.) so when Christ was resurrected by God, they use that word. when the world was created with the Word, they use that word. i really like that word. unfortunatley, it's really hard to say (araciligiyla... right.) i think it's an awesome picture we miss in our language, and your coolio post made me think of it and want to share :)

Linda Jackson said...

Glad to find your blog this morning. That is what is so glorious about the Word of God...everytime you read it---there is a need side of it for your to appreciate. Awesome God we serve! Have a great day! Linda J.

Kelly B. Pate said...

Hannah, I had the same glorious discovery a while back--a falling in love again with the glorious revelation of the Word. Our God is infinite, and as such, it will take us a long while to truly discover and digest all He chooses to reveal to us. Peace!