Advent in John’s Gospel: God Among Us In Human Flesh
Although this will reach you the day after Christmas, this is the fourth and final part in a series of Advent reflections in the Gospel of John.
We just celebrated Christmas: God manifest in human flesh. But where is Jesus seen today? What hope does Jesus offer those who struggle to see him, who struggle not seeing him, in the usual places and spaces? The short tl;dr answer is, Jesus shows up in the flesh whenever Christians enact love in word and deed. For the longer answer, please join me in reflecting on the Gospel of John as interpreted by the First Letter of John.
Interpreting The Life of Jesus For Survivors
As noted in the first post, John does not present a narrative account of Jesus’ birth. Many scholars believe that John assumed his audience had already heard and read the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ life, which allowed him to share deeper contemplative meditation on Jesus. John 1:14 is a case in point. It is the most succinct and explicit verse on the incarnation in all of Scripture, but it is highly symbolic, metaphorical, even metaphysical.
“The Logos became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we observed his splendor, the splendor as from the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”1
John 1:18 provides the counterpart, contrasting the “we observed his splendor” with “No one has seen God once.”
“No one has seen God once. The only [Son], God, who being in the Father’s garment-fold, that one expounded [God].”
With the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis on oppressive religion and abusive spiritual leaders, why would survivors of spiritual abuse need to know that God is seen in the incarnate life of Jesus? How does that bring comfort when most of the original recipients of John, like us today, had never and would never see Jesus in the flesh (cf 20:29)? Even more, what comfort does it bring to read and hear that Jesus has revealed the unseen Father when many who claim to represent Jesus look nothing like him?
Whether or not one believes that the epistles of John were written by the same author as the gospel of John, the parallels between the two are unmistakable. 1 John 4:12 is almost verbatim quotation of John 1:18.
“No one has once observed God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is fully completed in us” (1 John 4:12).
“No one has seen God once. The only [Son], God, who being in the Father’s garment-fold, that one expounded [God]” (John 1:18).
Scot McKnight brings out the differences in the first sentence of each of those verses, which have slightly different word order, as well as different verbs for “see”.2
What other differences are there between these two emphatic statements that no one has ever seen God? The Fourth Gospel emphasizes the unique role Jesus has as the enfleshed Word who reveals the unseeable Father. So Jesus says, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In contrast, or rather as a necessary development, John’s first letter emphasizes the unique role that the children of God have as those among whom God dwells in love.
Just as God sent Jesus to reveal and enflesh the love of the triune God, so Jesus sends his followers to enflesh the love of God in the world.
In other words, the incarnation of Jesus, which we celebrate at Christmas, grounds the embodiment of Jesus through God’s people until his return. We truly interpret the incarnation when we incarnate Christ’s love in truth.
Christ Manifest in Work and Truth
I can think of nothing that spiritual abuse survivors need more than love. Abuse is the opposite of love. Abusive leaders take rather than give, eat rather than feed, tearing down others in order to build themselves up. Abuse is also the opposite of love because, whereas love reveals God, abuse obscures God. In the stark language of 1 John 4:20, the one who has been abused in the name of God by a sibling, whom she can see, is unable to love and receive love from God, whom she has not seen.
No one has seen God. And yet, God the Son pitched a tent among us (en hēmin, John 1:14), so that whoever sees the Son has seen the Father.
No one living today has seen the Son in the flesh. And yet, when we love one another, God’s love abides among us (en hēmin, 1 John 4:12 ), so that whoever sees that love sees Jesus. As John Stott commented,
“God who is love still loves, and today His love is seen in our love…That is, the unseen God, who was once revealed in His Son, is now revealed in His people if and when they love one another.”3
Survivors do not see Jesus in mere words, however well intended. Survivors see Jesus when their sisters and brothers “don’t love in word or tongue but in work and truth” (1 John 3:18). Jesus is the Word made flesh whose words were “work and truth.” When the words of Christians are likewise “work and truth”, embodied acts of true love, Jesus is seen in the flesh.
When Christians, who have not had direct personal encounters with the darkness of spiritual hatred, believe and act on the basis victims’ testimony of that hatred, they practice the truth, and “God’s love is truly completed in this person” (1 John 2:5). Hatred sounds like a strong word, but it is the language of 1 John (cf 2:9-11, 3:13-15, 4:20). If abuse is the opposite of love, and hatred is the opposite of love, then abuse = hatred.
It is also said that the opposite of love is not hatred but indifference. These are two sides of the same coin: hatred can manifest in explicit abuse (verbal/emotional/physical/sexual/spiritual), or it can also manifest in mere “word or tongue” lip service that nevertheless neglects concrete, incarnate, enfleshed love.
Survivors see Jesus when their brothers and sisters love the truth, even and especially when that means “we openly agree [with God] about our sins.” Notice the plural our. John’s first letter is all about corporate life in the triune God. Even if we are not personally knowledgable of, or directly affected by a leader’s abuse, we can still confess, “openly agree”, on the evil of that abuse and rightfully seek that it be brought fully into the light.
The love of Christ is not perfected among us, is not incarnated and embodied in our communities, when we collude with darkness. Advent means being Jesus to one other. And that means loving the light and hating the darkness with just as much concrete physicality as Jesus flipping over tables.
Of course, that doesn’t mean words can never be works of love. Words can be deeds; speech can be action. This is manifested when Christians use their words to tell survivors, “I believe you. I stand with you.” Words can be deeds when Christians testify before others, “I believe Jane Doe. I stand with her.”
Or perhaps, these words are potential deeds. Time will tell. The force of abusive systems is designed to wear people down. The crisis of the initial disclosure appears to pass. Worship services and Bible studies and small groups must go on. And people forget.
But not the survivor. Not the one who saw hatred in the face of a shepherd, heard hatred in the words of a shepherd, and felt hatred in getting cast out by a shepherd. Such wounds go unspeakably deep. In order for words to heal they must go equally deep. This happens when they equally correspond with action.
We know Jesus is among us when abuse survivors are shown belief, love, truth, and service.
Here are just a few ways Christians can enact this concrete, incarnate love (in no particular order):
-
Speak up on behalf of survivors publicly in one’s church community. Be a truth-teller and truth-seeker. Ask hard questions of leaders. Question easy answers. Help those around you live into a counter-culture against the toxic tide of “don’t gossip” and “don’t be divisive.”
-
Provide for physical needs; quite often, abuse survivors have to go outside of their church community for help with basic needs housing, food and utilities.
-
Speak the angry language lament on their behalf. Press into the discomfort of calling evil what it is. While doing so, avoid clichés and Bible bandaids. So often, those are spoken for ourselves, wanting to ease the discomfort of unresolved tension. Sometimes Christlike love means stepping into Psalm 88 with a survivor. If you want to share hope from God’s Word, Romans 8:28 can wait. Instead, share from the myriad of Scripture passages that address oppression, violence, abuse, injustice, and the God of justice, love and compassion.
-
Pursue them with individualized compassion. Some survivors want and need space. But don’t “give them space” if they haven’t asked for it, as that can all too easily look like the neglect they endured from church and leaders. Ask them if it’s okay to text or call from time to time, and do so without expectation. Persistently calling, texting, emailing, writing even when survivors don’t reply might just be the face of our relentless God to wounded sheep.
-
Learn about abuse. I cannot emphasize this one enough. Read. Listen. There are so many books and speakers on abuse and trauma and betrayal in Christian communities. Talk to others about what you are learning. Admit what you do not know. Respect others’ expertise. And please, where you are doubtful and confused (as you will certainly be if you are truly learning), don’t discuss your confusion with survivors. Eg, ask questions about what does and does not constitute abuse, but find others to dialogue with who are not existentially touched by that question.
Those are just a handful of concrete ideas that come to mind. There are surely more. Diane Langberg’s book Suffering and the Heart of God offers a wealth of wisdom for embodying Christ’s love for survivors.
Quote from Diane Langberg
I believe that those members of the Body of Christ who have been called to walk with survivors become the representative of God to them. The reputation of God is at stake in our lives. We are called to live out in the seen, in flesh and blood, what is true about who God is...In other words, we are to demonstrate in the flesh the character of God over time so that who we are reveals the truth about God to the survivor. This is not in any way to deny or underestimate the power of the Word of God. However, often that word needs to be fleshed out and not just spoken for us to truly grasp what it means.
Question
Where do you see Jesus showing up in your and others’ lives this Christmas season? How is Jesus calling you to incarnate his love for the wounded in your community?
1 Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture references are from The Second Testament by Scot McKnight (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023).
2 Here is a side-by-side comparison
John 1:18 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε / theon oudeis heōraken pōpote / God no one has seen ever
1 John 4:12 θεὸν οὐδεὶς πώποτε τεθέαται / theon oudeis pōpote tetheatai / God no one ever has seen
3 John R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eardmans Publishing Co, 196), pp. 163-164.