November 27, 2011

1 Advent B – with alternate Gospel

John 1:1 -18

 

We humans are story telling beings.

We understand our lives through telling stories.

If I want to get to know who someone is, I ask them to tell me their story.

Our stories make sense of who we are.

 

Your stories, and my story, are part of a bigger story.

It’s a wonderful story.

We are characters in the story of the Bible.

We live somewhere in between the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church, and the book of Revelation, which tells the story of the coming of the Kingdom of God.

We heard a part of that big story in our reading from the Gospel of John.  John begins his story of Jesus with this prologue.

 

Whereas Mark begins his Gospel with a one verse introduction, and Matthew and Luke begin their Gospels with stories of Jesus’ birth and family trees, John goes all the way back before the creation of the world.

Just as the book of Genesis begins the story of the Bible with “In the beginning” – “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…” so John begins his story about the Word of God with “In the beginning”:

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  ²He [the Word] was in the beginning with God.

John tells us that the Logos, the Word of God took part in the creation of the universe: “All things came into being through him.”

The Word is the source of life: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

So far, so good.  At this point, anyone in the ancient world would be following along, nodding their heads.

They knew something about the Logos, the Word of God.

 

The amazing thing about the Word of God is this, as John tells us:

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh and lived among us.

Literally, “The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.”

God became one of us in Jesus Christ.

That’s the amazing truth we anticipate each Advent and celebrate each Christmas.

The Word became flesh – one of us, a human being – in Jesus.

We need to step back and see what an amazing, earth shaking truth that is.

 

The last verse of this passage tells us two important truths.[i]

First, “No one has ever seen God.”

No one has ever seen God.

If seeing is believing, then with God we’re out of luck.  If someone asks, “Where is God?”  You cannot point and say, “Right there!”

In ancient Israel, there was a belief that a human being cannot see God face to face and live to tell about it.  God is too awesome, too amazing, too far above and beyond us.

No one has ever seen God’s face – and lived.

That is a reality we experience; sometimes painfully.

Remember Mother Theresa, and the decades she spent without experiencing God’s presence with her.

Moses came close to seeing God face to face.  He asked God, “Show me your glory, I pray.”

God replied, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’ [YHWH];  and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.  But,” he [God] said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.”  And the LORD continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33:18-23).

God is holy, and too awesome for mortal eyes to behold.

In another time, Elijah the prophet experienced God while hiding in a cave in this way:

[God] said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

 

God was not in the great wind, or the earthquake, or fire, but in the sound of sheer silence.

 

No one has ever seen God.  That is the first truth.  However, there is a second truth in John 1:18:

It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made [God] known.

God has pitched God’s tent in our midst.

Do you want to know what God is like?

Look at Jesus.

Jesus is close to the heart of God.

God reveals God’s heart of love for us in Jesus.

We can know what God is like, when we get to know Jesus. 

 

Eugene Peterson, says this:

“The way we come to God is the same way God comes to us. God comes to us in Jesus; we come to God in Jesus. God comes to us in Jesus speaking the words of salvation, healing our infirmities, promising the Holy Spirit, teaching us how to live in the kingdom of God.

 

It is in and through this same Jesus that we pray to and believe, hear and obey, love and praise God. Jesus is the way God comes to us. Jesus is the way we come to God.”

 

Quoting the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus, Peterson says there’s one saying from the fragments of his speeches he likes very much in the context of this conversation about the Jesus way: “The way up and the way down is the same way.”[ii]

 

In this life, we cannot see God in God’s self, face to face.

But God has made God’s self known to us in Jesus Christ.

The Word [of God] became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 

It’s a little like children.  Children first learn about God and God’s love for them through their parents or other loving adults.

You learned something about God through your earthly parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, and other caring adults. 

That’s why strong, loving, nurturing families are so important.

That’s why it is so important that our church is intergenerational, with children and adults learning about God’s love for them from people of all ages and stages of life.

Hopefully, as a child you learned something about God’s unconditional love for you from adults in your life.

Hopefully, you learned something about how far God would go for you, how much God would give for you.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 

That is the love of God that Jesus reveals to us – a love for all of God’s creation.

The light of Jesus Christ shines into the darkness of the world, the darkness of our lives.

And the darkness did not overcome the light.

 

John says,

¹²But to all who received him [the Word, Jesus Christ], who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

That is the promise of God revealed in the Word of love that God spoke, Jesus Christ.  To all who receive Jesus, who trust in him, Jesus gives power to become children of God, born of God.

From Jesus’ “fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

We become members of God’s family, branches grafted onto God’s family tree.

Our story becomes a part of God’s great story of creation and salvation. 

It’s the greatest story ever told.  And it’s your story, my story, our story.

Thanks be to God!