The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. If you read the ‘Message’ translation of John 1:14 it says ‘The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood’. And another version reads ‘The word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.’ I like those two translations of that verse because they root Christmas in the midst of life, in real life, the earthly life of ordinary people.
An 8 year old girl wrote a letter to God once, it read ‘Dear God, can you write some more stories as we’ve already read the ones you have written.’
I have a lot of sympathy for that girl. Year after year we hear the same old story at Christmas, and on more than one occasion. We listen to the same old passages from the bible – from the Old Testament about the promise of the Messiah.. from Luke’s gospel about the annunciation of Mary, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth in the stable, the angels appearing to the shepherds on the hillside outside Bethlehem, the shepherds journeying to see the baby Jesus. From Matthew’s gospel we read the account of the wise men travelling from the east to visit the infant Jesus, bringing with them the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Each year we sing the same carols several times over, we repeat the sweetness of the nativity in all its ‘niceness’, we eat the same food and have the same parties. We’ve done it all before. We’ve been there, done that and even bought the t-shirt. 2000 years is a long time to keep repeating the same story.
But for Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise man, and even the innkeeper, it was all very new, all very anxious, all very exciting and wonderful. How can we make the deep, wonderful, meaningful message of Christmas exciting, real, fresh, new? How can we relight the truth of Christmas? How can we break through into the commercial nature of Christmas to find the why of the celebration?
Let’s go back to the text I have chosen for today. ‘The word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.’
God in Jesus pitched his tent among us and through this, through the generosity we see the glory of God. Imagine it – the baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a cattle trough, visited by poor and despised trappings, shows God’s glory.
In a place that had no trappings of refined, civilised living we see God’s glory. How can a baby, born in such a place, a dirty stable with animals all around, show the glory of God? What glory did the shepherds see in that stable? What glory did the wise men see when they visited the infant Jesus.
What glory did the disciples see in Jesus as he made his way to the outcast, the lost and the lonely? What glory did the people see, later, as Jesus hung in pain and agony on the cross? We are told that Jesus pitched his tent among us and we saw his glory.
How do we see the glory of God revealed when the baby is born in such poor circumstances, in such poverty, to an older man and a young woman pregnant before she got married? Surely God is not going to work like that.
To try to answer the question, and make the Christmas message real for today, we need to try to understand what we really mean by glory. When we use the word glory it seems to carry with it a sense of something other, something holy, something out of this world, something special. And in a sense that’s right.
In the Old Testament we have the Jewish idea of ‘Shechinah’. The word ‘Shechinah’ means that which dwells and is the word used for the presence of God among the people.
In the Old Testament there are a number of times when God’s glory was visible among the people. In the desert, before the giving of the manna when the people of Israel were grumbling because they were hungry and should have stayed in captivity in Egypt, the people looked towards the wilderness and saw the glory of the Lord appear in a cloud.
Before the giving of the 10 commandments we read that the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. When Solomon’s temple was dedicated, the priests couldn’t enter it because the glory of the Lord filled it. When Isaiah had a vision in the temple he heard the angel choir singing that the whole earth was full of God’s glory. The glory of the Lord came when God was very close.
The glory of the Lord is actually a very simple idea. The glory of the Lord is simply the presence of God. So, when John says that God came to earth and pitched his tent among us, in our neighbourhood, the people saw in him the splendour of God and at the heart of that splendour was love. When Jesus came to earth, in the ordinary people saw the wonder of God. We can see the glory of God in the ordinary, everyday things of earth, in the mundane, in the things that are involved in, in the depths of the pains of earth as well as the joys.
The word became flesh and pitched his tent in our neighbourhood. It’s a very human expression. God entered the world in Christ. God became fully human and, in his birth we see Christ experiencing true human life. We see his glory in the ordinary. We see the presence of God in the ordinary everyday things of life.
Not for Jesus the wealth and the trappings of a palace. Not for Jesus a posh room with a four-poster bed in which to lie. Not for Jesus servants meeting his every need while his parents lived it up celebrating his birth. Not for Jesus parents who were part of the nobility, or royalty. Not for Jesus parents from the upper-classes. Not for Jesus a birth in a church. No announcements in the Times or the Telegraph.
No, for Jesus he entered the world right in the thick of it – in the much of the stable with animals all around and the dirt and the smells that go along with them. To a mother who became pregnant before she was married and who was young, and an earthly father who was at first embarrassed and though of getting rid of Mary quietly and quickly.
The birth was announced first not to the wealthy, the leaders of the nation, but to the shepherds on a hillside going about their daily business. It was good news to them and all people.
Throughout his life Jesus pitched his tent in the neighbourhood. Jesus, in his life, sought out those most in need and had a deep compassion for those in need. He reached out to lepers seen as outcasts, the woman bleeding for 12 years, the widow, those looked down on by society, those despised, the lonely, lost and bewildered. Jesus pitched his tent in the neighbourhood. And today Jesus does just the same. Today Jesus pitches his tent in our neighbourhood. He reveals his glory in the ordinary.
And the responsibility we have is to see where God is, where he has pitched his tent, see what God is doing, she what he wants to do in our neighbourhood, and join him. It means coming out of our comfort zone, coming out of our cosiness and getting into the nitty-gritty of the world, with those whose need is great. And to bring to those situations a spiritual input, a spiritual insight so that others can discover God in the ordinary of the world.
God is out there, already working, already with a tent pitched, God is already out there where we, as Christians, sometimes fear to tread, or don’t want to Go. We need to discover where God has pitched his tent.
But another thing about pitching a tent is that it is never permanent. Tents are temporary. Nomads of the past would pitch their tents for a time and then, sometime later, move on somewhere new. If you go camping you pitch a tent for a while but it is never permanent. And that says something to us as we seek to discover what God wants us to be doing.
In the church, in our service, we so often start something and assume that it’s something that is to continue for ever. And the longer something goes on the harder it is to stop. But sometimes God moves his tent to something new while we keep on trying to do the same thing when God has upped sticks and moved on. Just because we have always done something, or done something for years, doesn’t mean we should always do the same thing.
It’s easy to stay with what we find comfortable, what we find easy. It’s easy to stay within our comfort zone even when God has moved on.
So we need to constantly ask ourselves where God has pitched his tent. I met the other week with the co-ordinator for the Bay Life Initiative which has £38m to spend on the promenade and another £20m on the regeneration of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, wanting tio get the church involved in what is happening, to make sure we had an input into the mapping process, to bring a spiritual aspect to what is going on.
God in the ordinary. If we are to make an impact on society, if we are to make an impact today, if we are going to be where God is today, we need to understand the culture of where God has pitched his tent. Recent years have seen a huge change in society and culture, in the main, the church has stood still, with little change and has, as a result become isolated from society.
If we are to find where God has pitched his tent we need to relate to the culture of the day. If we don’t, I wonder whether the church has a future. The church is good for those who come, but has little to say to those who don’t come.
As Christians, the message for us is to find where God has pitched his tent in the ordinary things of life, and join him, find his presence, find his glory.
Summary
The Word became flesh and pitched his tent in our neighbourhood.
