On the way home from my weekly study of the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the following week, with Mary’s Magnificat ringing in my ears and David StClair’s phrase “respiratory martyrdom” tumbling around my brain (think of an exasperated sigh puffing from an eye-rolling child), I spotted one of many of our neighbors’ fancy digital signboards flashing forth their Christmas slogan, one line at a time:
And the Word became flesh
and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory
John 1:14
And a number of other thoughts fought for attentional primacy as I hurled my 3000-lb machine along the pavement in a residential neighborhood.
Not one of those thoughts was, “What hazards are presenting themselves to me as I approach them four times faster than I can run?”
They were more like this:
Ooh, that text is one of the ones we’re hearing on Christmas Eve!
John is such a mysterious guy, but he has such a wonderful turn of phrase.
…the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Wait, why isn’t that up there?
And that’s where I got caught in a cognitive loop.
I have a deep appreciation for the focus on the immanence of God in the person of Jesus. Immanuel is probably my favorite characteristic of the Divine. God Is with Us is a deep message of hope that speaks with immediacy to just about every human situation.
But I can’t help but speak that verse in its entirety. What was quoted on the signboard wasn’t John 1:14, it was John 1:14a, just the first part of the verse. Its incompletion bothers me, and not because it leaves out something I particularly treasure. It covers my favorite theology in the verse. It just bothers me because I want it to go on.
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.
What kind of glory? The glory like the only son of a father.
In a culture in which heritage is only passed patrilineally, having sons is of the utmost importance. With no sons, a father’s estate and family line is lost. With only one son, there is only one opportunity for heritage to be passed on. What should happen if the son is hurt or lost? Everything is dependent on his survival and his good upbringing.
And what of daughters? Their best hope is to marry into somebody else’s secure family. They have no hope of carrying on the father’s estate or family.
Speaking as someone with one son and two daughters with extraordinarily diverse gifts and interests, that bugs me. It’s entirely sensible in its cultural and historical context, but today the patriarchal baggage of “the glory as of a father’s only son” nags at me.
So maybe today it’s important to note that “only son” is also used in Luke 8 to describe Jairus’s daughter.
His only-begotten daughter.
His singular treasure. Maybe the person more important to this synagogue leader than anyone else in the world.
She isn’t just a write-off to Jairus. She’s important enough that Jairus seeks Jesus out and – this man who has people to wait on him, hand and foot – falls on his knees to beg like the poor at his own door.
The glory of his life is losing the battle of her life.
That glory is who the Word is to the Creator. That glory is whom God sends to be born in a stable, drenched with birthy goo and fragile as a tender stem, shocked by the rush of desert air into brand-new lungs, rushed into the protection of Mary’s arms as she takes him to her to know him, to comfort him, to protect him, to covenant to him that he is the glory as of her only son, full of grace and truth.
The miracle of Christmas.
May that glory dwell in your house this Christmastide. May the grace and truth of God wrapped up in a fragile infant transform your understanding of the Divine in these days. May you never be the same, because
the Word became flesh
and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory.
Peace,
Brandon
First United Methodist Church of Bristol 