So who is this person?

So, onward with John's poetic prologue.  We move to the next paragraph John 1:14-17 which matches the paragraph about life and light in several ways.  The most obvious is that each has a  parenthesis about John (the Baptiser) and his witness to Jesus.  The initial sentence in this paragraph is about 'coming among us' and in the earlier paragraph the last sentence is about 'coming into the world'.  This doesn't mean that there is no resonance with the other paragraphs though!

One of the important things that happens in this paragraph is that John clearly identifies who he is writing about.  He starts by referring to the person he is speaking about as 'the Word' (this is the only time after the first verse); he ends by refering to Jesus Christ.  In between, he introduces the term 'the one and only' which he will use in the next paragraph.  So now we have the name of this person.  This is important for connecting us with the historical narrative which follows.  We know that this first bit is not random, but inviting us into the story of Jesus.

We are given more understanding of what John is asking us to be open to.  Up to now he has just said that the one he is talking about 'came' into the world.  This could mean some other sort of esoteric 'appearing'.  But here we are told that he 'became flesh', or became body.  If we have been reading closely up to now, this should astonish us.  We have been told that this being is cosmic in power and universal in significance; now we are told that he became animal, in the sense of consisting of muscle and bone.  That is hugely difficult to get our minds around, but John doesn't labour the point here. 

He is going to give us the rest of the story to come to terms with what he has said and some of what it might mean. Right now what he is doing is planting the thought in our minds so that the story is able to ask us the questions as we go along.