When Pixels Become Flesh

A Truthful Way

As moderns and postmoderns, we have a troubled relationship with truth. Many believed the information age would sort out our struggles to understand each other and the world around us. With data-packed computers in our pockets, we thought we would know and be known. We would finally understand what was happening in the world around us, why it was happening, and how we might right the wrongs of society. We would finally know the truth. We weren’t naïve, but we were hopeful. Much of this confidence and certainty was unconscious. Our TV shows shifted from The Flintstones to The Jetsons, who lived in Orbit City. Robots were everywhere because everything could be figured out. All it would take was more information, more knowledge. 

• It turns out that truth is more complicated than possessing more data and information.

In the postmodern absence of an agreed-on truth source — a metanarrative or story that pulls all the data into a coherent meaning — influential people manipulate data to serve their own power-filled purposes. They invent ways to misinterpret, misinform, and bend true information to fit preconceived narratives that align with what their followers want to believe about themselves and the world around them.

The irony of our age is that though we have more information and greater access to data, we are more suspicious of that information and more deceitful in how we use it. We no longer trust email requests from our bank or Amazon because they might be phishing attempts or embezzlement attacks. Businesses now have massive budgets to ward off hackers and poachers. Living in the abundance of the information age, we have witnessed the erosion of trust. 

A Personal Way

The ancient world had its own struggles with truth. There was plenty of debate about the character of God, the desires of God, and the role of God’s people in this world. Some thought the people of God were still in exile, even though they were living in their promised land — that is, they believed the Roman occupation was defiling the land and kept them from being truly at home. Some reasoned that if sin had led to exile, then holiness would end the exile. They believed renewed covenant faithfulness was the way to restoration. The basic theology for such persons was: sin → exile → return/restoration.

This narrative told the story of everything, explaining Israel’s past, present, and future.

Jesus entered into this pattern of thinking with a challenge like none other. Yes, God gave the Torah, and the Torah was Israel’s special privilege. But the way to read the Torah and understand its message, Jesus proposed, was like this:

No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really know Me, you will know My Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him. — John 14:6–7 

These two sentences, which immediately follow the “I am the way and the truth and the life” statement, essentially say that the heart of God is found only by pursuing the presence of God.

Jesus made it clear that He is the I Am who reveals God. He is God’s presence.

The truth is a person, and His name is Jesus.

Pixels Become Flesh

Several years ago, my wife and I (Tommy) were visiting my parents at their new home in upstate New York. We had a little extra cash and a few days away from the kids, so we took the train to New York City. We were invited by someone we got to know through Facebook and Instagram. She lived in Brooklyn with her husband, who was traveling for work, and she offered us a bedroom for the night.

When we finally met in real life, I was struck by how different she was from what I expected. Her voice was softer and more subdued than I imagined, her mannerisms more humble, and she was a little shorter than I expected. I had to make some adjustments as the old picture in my mind was replaced. The illusion of knowing someone from a distance was replaced with a truer knowledge of that person. The picture we had in our heads was like a mosaic of pieces, posts, images, and personality bits that were shining through. But then those pixels became flesh.

When Jesus says, “If you know Me, you will know My Father as well” (John 14:7), He knows exactly what He’s speaking about. Jesus doesn’t just add another piece to the puzzle of God. He wipes the mystery off the table and says, Look at Me, and you will know the Father. Look at who Jesus spends His time with, how He sees people, and how He responds to the world’s pain and suffering with compassion.

• When you see Jesus’ character, you see the very character of God the Father.

That’s what Jesus says. For Jesus, the truth is a person — the pixels made flesh, God incarnate.

Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, when he overheard this teaching from Jesus, replied,

Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. — John 14:8

In this one sentence, Philip summed up the desires of all religions throughout human history: Just tell me what God is like and what God wants. Give me the information. Verses 9 and 10 capture Jesus’ surprise at this request:

Jesus answered: ’Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me?’ — John 14:9–10

It’s as if Jesus is saying, I know it’s difficult. Something altogether new is now here. The true image stands before you. I am the truth! Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). He is the complete message that God has for the world. When we think of God, the Father wants us to think of Jesus — the embodiment of human weakness and shame, with His beard ripped out and His nakedness exposed. Every symbol of power and masculinity was stripped from His body as He bore the shame of the sinners on either side of Him.

All of this is because God is not powerful in the way we often picture power (violent and coercive, strong and wealthy, with a good reputation and a rich pedigree). God is powerful in His display of weakness, in His fellowship with the broken, in His offer of forgiveness to sinners, and in the resurrection of the dead. Jesus is the truth.

Excerpted with permission from Invisible Jesus: A Book About Leaving the Church and Looking for Christ by Scot McKnight & Tommy Preson Phillips, copyright Scot McKnight and Thomas Preson Phillips.

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Your Turn

Jesus reaches out to us unlike anyone else who wants our attention or access. He IS the truth. He IS the way. And, He IS the life. When we get to know Him, we get to know God Himself. God the tender and God the powerful. ~ Devotionals Daily