Out of the thousand things which follow directly from this reading of John, I choose three as particularly urgent.<\/p>\n
First, John\u2019s view of the incarnation, of the Word becoming flesh, strikes at the very root of that liberal denial which characterised mainstream theology thirty years ago and whose long-term effects are with us still. I grew up hearing lectures and sermons which declared that the idea of God becoming human was a category mistake. No human being could actually be divine; Jesus must therefore have been simply a human being, albeit no doubt (the wonderful patronizing pat on the head of the headmaster to the little boy) a very brilliant one. Phew; that\u2019s all right then; he points to God but he isn\u2019t actually God. And a generation later, but growing straight out of that school of thought, I have had a clergyman writing to me this week to say that the church doesn\u2019t know anything for certain, so what\u2019s all the fuss about? Remove the enfleshed and speaking Word from the centre of your theology, and gradually the whole thing will unravel until all you\u2019re left with is the theological equivalent of the grin on the Cheshire Cat, a relativism whose only moral principle is that there are no moral principles; no words of judgment because nothing is really wrong except saying that things are wrong, no words of mercy because, if you\u2019re all right as you are, you don\u2019t need mercy, merely \u201d\u02dcaffirmation\u2019.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where we are right now; and John\u2019s Christmas message issues a sharp and timely reminder to re-learn the difference between mercy and affirmation, between a Jesus who both embodies and speaks God\u2019s word of judgment and grace and a home-made Jesus (a Da Vinci Code Jesus, if you like) who gives us good advice about discovering who we really are. No wonder John\u2019s gospel has been so unfashionable in many circles. There is a fashion in some quarters for speaking about a \u201d\u02dctheology of incarnation\u2019 and meaning that our task is to discern what God is doing in the world and do it with him. But that is only half the truth, and the wrong half to start with. John\u2019s theology of the incarnation is about God\u2019s word coming as light into darkness, as a hammer that breaks the rock into pieces, as the fresh word of judgment and mercy. You might as well say that an incarnational missiology is all about discovering what God is saying No to today, and finding out how to say it with him. That was the lesson Barth and Bonhoeffer had to teach in Germany in the 1930s, and it\u2019s all too relevant as today\u2019s world becomes simultaneously, and at the same points, more liberal and more totalitarian. This Christmas, let\u2019s get real, let\u2019s get Johannine, and let\u2019s listen again to the strange words spoken by the Word made flesh.<\/p>\n