Readings

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” “Lived among us”: a defensible, if colorless translation. The Common English Bible offers “and made his home among us.” A more literal translation might be “and tabernacled among us.” Why would John put it that way?

John begins his prologue evoking Scripture’s creation story (“In the beginning…”), so let’s think about creation stories. The Mesopotamians (the tower of Babel and all that) told their creation stories ending with the construction of the metropolitan temple. And that gives us a clue regarding the logic at work in the first two books of the Old Testament. Genesis begins with the creation of the heavens and earth. Exodus ends with the creation (construction) of the tabernacle. In the internal chronology both start on the same day (first day, first month); the narrative of the tabernacle’s construction picks up Genesis’ creation language. There are, of course, differences in the Mesopotamian and Old Testament accounts, e.g., the Mesopotamian accounts ending with a temple at the center of imperial power, Moses and the freed slaves erecting the tabernacle at the foot of Sinai. But in both cases the goal is the same: creation reaches its goal, its telos, when there is a home for God in our midst.

The ending of Exodus’ account is worth noticing: “So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exod. 40:33-35).

All of which brings into focus what John’s doing in his prologue in our Gospel reading. He’s not simply evoking the old creation story, but telling that story with a new ending: that Word through whom all things came into being becomes flesh, tabernacles among us. So, as Exodus moves immediately from tabernacle to glory, John adds: “and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Paul talks about a new creation in one of his letters; John builds it into the structure of his prologue.

This dive into the creation and tabernacle stories might get us wondering what creation is for. It’s clearly not a sort of ant farm stuck on the shelf to ward off divine boredom. Taken as a whole (so I’m pulling the camera way back), Scripture’s stories suggest that it’s the Holy Trinity out of an abundance of love and joy creating a world in which all that love and joy can be shared.

So this world: always more or less alien to God, or a place where finally even God can, as it were, take off the shoes and put the feet up? Home: that is one of the images Scripture uses to capture creation’s goal (“Behold, the home of God is among humans!” [Rev 21:3 NRSV*]). Or, as Volf and McAnnally-Linz provocatively describe the endgame, here “God has now made the world such that God does not need to rule” (The Home of God p.214).

“And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” That’s where that’s heading.

That’s the gift under the tree. And because we’re sometimes slow on the uptake John reminds us of how to open it: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

Merry Christmas.