The Word Made Flesh

During a recent meditation, I received the following message:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And, the Word became flesh (John 1). I am the Word. The Word is made flesh as Divine Love. I am the Word made flesh.”

Traditional Christianity asserts that ‘the Word’ in John’s Gospel refers to Jesus. In Unity, we teach that ‘the Word’ is the Christ, the aspect of the Creator that may be realized by humanity. It is a potential for each of us. We teach that Jesus, the master teacher and way shower, realized his Christ potential and embodied the energy of Divine Love. Thus, he was the Word made flesh.

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew tells the story of when Jesus “took Peter, James and John up to a high mountain and he was transfigured, his face shown like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Matthew 17: 1-2 NRSV). Metaphysically, this change in appearance represents the radiance of Divine Love revealed through one who has raised his vibrational frequency to the consciousness of the Christ. Each of us has the potential to do the same through consistent and habitual uplifting of our minds through prayer and meditation, as is metaphorically represented by Jesus going to a high mountain.

This is one of the primary tenants of Unity, and one I completely embrace and champion. While I have not yet completely realized it in its fullest expression, the Christ vibration has been and continues to be an ideal to which I aspire. In addition, I am awakening more and more to the awareness that while embodying Divine Love is a supreme aspiration, it alone is not enough. We must also express Divine Love in our daily walk. We must be the Word made flesh.

Author, lecturer, and sacred activist, Andrew Harvey, inspires in his book, The Hope,

“Divine Love is not only an interior experience: after all, it is also the energy that creates and sustains the universe. To live in Divine Love is inevitably to act from it, both by the radiance of your presence and in actual acts of justice and compassion.”

After experiencing his transfiguration, Jesus did not sit on the mountaintop like a guru awaiting the arrival of his aspirants or even the pilgrimages of those seeking help and healing. On the contrary, he went out into the world sharing the radiance of Divine Love and engaging in acts of justice and compassion. He fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, comforted the grieving, and facilitated healing in the infirm.

We are called to follow the example of Jesus. ‘The Word’ must be made flesh as each of us. ‘The Word’ is made flesh in us as we express Divine Love in acts of justice and compassion. It is good to pray and meditate in order to raise our vibrational frequency, and we must not stop there. We must also go out into the world and be the Divine Love we are. As Unity’s fifth basic principle states, “We must live the Truth we know.”

Please join us on Sunday as we welcome our guest speaker and workshop presenter, Rev. Mark Gilbert, author of Becoming a Spiritual Change Agent. He will share with us about “Living as an Agent of Love” in the world. I hope you will come to hear Mark’s inspiring message and stay for the workshop in which he will support us in moving from the experience of Divine Love into its expression. 

It is my prayer that we at Unity Church of Denver will more fully and more actively engage in serving the world through acts of justice and compassion. Let us follow Jesus’s example and be “the Word made flesh” for those who are suffering.