The Christmas Story According to John
I love bananas, but they don’t love me. Just ask my family. If I eat a couple bananas, the family all suffers for a few days. Enough said.
I love the Christmas story, but it doesn’t always love me. If I get too focused on the manger and shepherds and donkeys and stables, I tend to become too earthy for my spiritual good.
Unlike Luke or Matthew, the Gospel of John sums up the Christmas story in a few words: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In other words, Spirit took the form of flesh and revealed Himself to us. John never forgot that Jesus was first Spirit. Jesus’ reality was first a spiritual reality. Oh, He came in the flesh all right. It was a must. However, he was originally, spirit.
The people of his day tended to forget this. John records some of their words in Chapter 6: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven.’?” In the same chapter of John, Jesus shocks the crowd when he says they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. Several walked away, and even the disciples of Christ said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it.”
Truth be told, I think it’s a hard saying, too. I cringe at the thought of eating flesh and drinking blood. I cringe until I realize that Jesus sees himself as spirit first. He says, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” He isn’t talking about real flesh and blood. He is talking about being filled with his Spirit.
Taking this idea one step further means seeing myself as spirit more than flesh. That is hard, but it makes sense to do so if I’m to spend seventy or eighty plus years in the flesh and then spend eternity as a spirit.
I can intellectually say “yes” to this concept, but oh how hard the reality of living it. When I look in the mirror, I see flesh, sometimes more than I care to see. When I get hungry, I think and feel flesh. When I get uptight about money, I am concerned about my fleshly existence and am hoping I have enough to spend on my needs. How do I flip my switch so that I see myself as spirit first?
I think it begins with knowing that I need to. It continues with me experimenting with ways to feed my spirit. For instance, I’m finding, as I get older, that my spirit requires more solitude. It hungers to be quiet and alone. I’m finding that my spirit cannot grow inside flesh that never slows down. Being too busy prevents my spiritual cells from growing and multiplying. They need rest. It seems that my spirit is anathema towards any emphasis on “more money.” That is energy wasted that could be invested in growth. My spirit wants to give, be more charitable than my flesh. They war with each other, but I feel better when the spirit wins. I need more wise counsel, more clever humor, and the inspiration of the arts. With boosts like solitude, peace, charity, counsel, humor, and creativity, my spirit grows.
Just as puppies become full grown dogs and babies become teenagers and then adults, so too must we grow up from the “cute” stage of the newborn Christian to the more mature disciple that Jesus can use in his kingdom. We must understand more than the baby in the manger. That understanding must grow to include the Jesus who said we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. If we see him as spirit first, his words are understandable and fitting and can lead us to see ourselves in that same light. We are spirit first. To grasp that is to open the door to Christian maturity.
About the Author:
Steve Graner is a Christian educator and familyman employed by the Minot, ND Public School District. A licensed laypastor, he is passionate about Christian writing and Christian drama. Along with family and friends, Steve has performed numerous self-written dramas and musicals for area church audiences.