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John 1: 1-18
Pastor Michael Wheatley, May 8, 2011
Background. Each of the four gospels is written from a different point of view. Each has a distinct take on the life of Christ. Matthew writes presupposing a knowledge of the Old Testament because he is writing to a Christian audience with Jewish roots presenting Jesus as the Messiah. Mark presents Jesus as a servant. Jesus is the one who does. Luke presents Jesus as the complete or perfect man. John pulls back the curtain. John shows us Jesus as God in descent. God takes His place in the womb of Mary and becomes Man.
This Sunday we start a series that will take us through John. This Sunday we will look at the first eighteen verses of the book. These verses are a preview to the whole gospel. John tells us what he is going to say in these verses. As the gospel goes on he says it. Below is our text for Sunday.
Scripture: John 1:1-18.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that light was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
Sermon. There is a story about two angels. One was a senior angel and one was a junior angel still learning the ropes of angelhood. The senior angel showed the junior angel the universe in all of its expansive glory. And he said, “See that galaxy out there?” It was not entirely easy to pick it out from the billions that are out there, but he did. Angels can do that. The senior angel said, “See that star there on the edge of that galaxy—the one with the nine planets?” And yes, the junior angel picked it out and asked, “What’s so special about it?” The senior angel said, “Look closely.” The junior angel did. He said, “It looks dirty—small and dirty—and the people—they aren’t treating each other or the planet very well and there is little respect for God. They are rebellious.”
The senior angel said, “Yes, it’s been that way almost from the beginning.” The junior angel said, “Disgusting,” and asked again what was so special about it. And the senior one said, “That’s the one God loves. And that’s the one God is going to visit. He’s going to become incarnate there.” The junior angel said, “I don’t believe it! Do you mean to tell me that God is going to become one of them, one of those creepy crawly hurtful things that live on that planet?” The senior angel said, “Yes. That’s exactly what he’s going to do.”
“Why?” asked the junior angel. The senior angel answered, “Because he loves them. He wants to remold them into something that’s no longer hurtful, nor rebellious.”
Today we are beginning a new series that will take us through John’s gospel. John’s gospel tells us the story of God, who, because of love for us, came to us, became one of us in order to change us into something that we would like and God can enjoy. For even though he loves us, he doesn’t necessarily enjoy us.
So John’s gospel is a love story, about God who did things outside the box, unexpected extraordinary things. The 18 verses we just read are like the prologue to the story, a preview telling us what is coming. Really, he will do two things. First he will tell us about Jesus who is God. Second, he will tell us what he came to do, all as a preview.
Before we look at that preview we need to come to terms with an expression John uses in the first verse. He talks about the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the Jewish world, words had life. Words did things. In the creation account, God said. He spoke the words, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Words had power; words had life in themselves, energy. Words did things. There is a story of two brothers and their father. The father was Isaac. His first-born was Esau. The second was Jacob. The first-born was to receive the father’s blessing. But Jacob deceived his father and Isaac spoke the words of blessing to Jacob. And once those words were spoken they could not be undone. He couldn’t say it was a mistake and take it back. Once the words were spoken they began to act and nothing can stop it. Words have creative power.
And we see that today. Words have the power to crush a person. Words also have the power to encourage, to lift us. Words are important. Words are powerful. For example, there’s a difference between telling a child, “You’re a bad boy” and “You did a bad thing.” God is careful with his words. Maybe we should be also.
So back in John—John is telling us that Jesus is the Word; that Jesus is the creative revealing power of God. Jesus is God making himself known. Jesus is God doing and Jesus is God expressing himself. Jesus is the Word—Jesus is God’s self-expression. The very last line of this passage says: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” It could read: “No one has ever seen God, but Jesus as the Word, who is God, the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” In the book of Colossians we are told that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. So if you want to know what God is like, all you have to do is look to Jesus. He is God making himself known to us.
What this does is get us past thinking that God the Father is some crusty old embittered harsh god and Jesus is a young compassionate one. Remember the Wizard of Oz? Dorothy finally gets to the Emerald City with her friends and actually gets an audience with the Wizard. They go into the throne room, and projected on a screen is this huge terrifying image, scaring the life out of them. Then Toto pulls back the curtain where the real Wizard is pushing the buttons; where the real Wizard was projecting something to make him look larger than life—to compensate for his feelings of smallness and inadequacy. God projects his true self through his son. How else are we going to come to know God who is different; who is wholly other than we are, unless he shows us himself in something we can understand? That’s what he has done in Jesus. Jesus is the Word.
So back to that first line—we are told that the Word, Jesus, was there in the beginning. That is to say, when the beginning came along, Jesus was already there. Jesus has always been there. There was never a time when Jesus was not. Jesus is eternal. Jesus was there with God when it all began. This implies a bit of distinct personality as in God the Father and God the Son. But John makes it clear saying the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus is God. John begins, without equivocation, that Jesus is God. He will end his gospel with Thomas saying, “My Lord and my God.” And in between we will have Jesus himself laying it out plainly; telling us who he is. I hear it often said that Jesus never claims to be God. Nothing can be further from the truth. In John’s gospel this becomes evident.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (John1:1-2) Next John tells us that Jesus is the agent of creation. This Jesus born of Mary, who turned water into wine, who would be betrayed by Judas—John says—“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3) Again, referring to Colossians, it says: “For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” Here John also introduces two more themes that will unfold later and often: life and light. He says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Jesus will say, “I am the resurrection, and the life, the way and the truth,” . . . he came to give us life. It is a word that will pop up 50 times in John’s gospel because it is central to who Jesus is and what he came to do for us.
He is the light of the world. Twenty-four times John uses the word “light” regarding Jesus. Jesus is light in the sense of revealing or making God known. He is light revealing truth—what is true about God, what is true about us. He is light that guides, showing us the way to experience God’s best.
There are two things left. They are incarnation and purpose. Incarnation is all about intimacy. It is about presence, about God connecting with us in the deepest way. John says that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Thomas asked: “Jesus, show us the Father.” Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” What God did would be something like Elizabeth II moving into the slums of some you-name-it city without an escort nor a crown and making it her home. Kings and queens and gods don’t do that, except God did—in Jesus.
And why did he do it? That is really the purpose of the gospel. John says: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (1:12-13) He would say it again at the end. Everything in between is designed to move us in that direction—that we would believe in him and that by believing we would become God’s children; that we would receive life.
So this is where we are going to be for several months, going through the gospel of John. We will look at the evidence that Jesus is God come to us. And we will look at what he has done to make it possible that we could experience life as it was meant to be.
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