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The Beginning
October
24, 1999
First in a series on the Gospel of John
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
John
1:1-18
I. Introduction to Studying
the Gospel of John
This
morning I want to issue you an invitation to begin a journey,
a journey through the Gospel of John. With a couple
of breaks, particularly around Advent, we will stay in
John as a text for our sermons for some time. As the
leaves finish turning color and fall, we will gather to
read John. When the days get shorter (and wetter),
we will listen to John. And when buds begin to appear
on trees and we journey through Lent and into Easter…I
suspect that we will still be listening to John.
I’m
very excited to issue you this invitation. And I want
to encourage you to read from this book as we go through
it, read it from start to finish. Pray over it, talk
about it, listen for God’s voice in it, study it, read
about it. I’m excited because I think God has
some special things in this book just for our community.
And
I’m excited because John is…different. The
New Testament has four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John. The first three are called the “synoptic” gospels
because of their similar scope and content. Most scholars,
in fact, believe that Matthew, Mark and Luke had access
to each other, or at least to a common source…though
certainly they have very distinctive differences as well. In
ancient times, the gospel writers were pictured with symbols:
- Matthew was
represented by a lion. It presents the royal profile
of Jesus, looking at his head and providing doctrine
for followers. Some call Matthew the gospel for
teachers.
- Mark was
pictured as a man, and his book looks hard at the humanity
of Christ, and his saving presence in human history. Some
call it the gospel for evangelists.
- Luke was
pictured as an ox. His book emphasizes the work,
the hands of Jesus, his ministry and care for people. Some
call it the gospel for social-workers.
- But
John. John is represented by an eagle, a soaring
eagle, and looks at Jesus from above, exploring his
connection to God, delving into the mysteries of his
identity. Some call John the gospel for elders
or spiritual leaders.
John
is…different. From earliest times, this gospel
was clearly seen as distinctive and unique. Clement
of Alexandria, in the second century, wrote this: “Last
of all John, perceiving that the bodily facts had been
made plain in the (other) gospels, being urged by his friends,
and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual gospel.” And
so, I invite you...to see what God has for us in the months
ahead.
II. Sermon on John 1:1-18
My
grandfather Charles passed away this last summer. We
were sad to lose him.
He
was a dear man, and had probably the best memory of our
family history…a history that moved from Germany,
migrating eventually to the wheatfields of Central Idaho,
and spilling more recently into Western Washington. Fortunately,
about a year before he died, my mom felt an urgency, and
had the foresight to sit Grampa down in front of a tape
recorder, and get him talking about the family history…people,
dates, times, places, stories. And because she did
that, we have this audible record of Grampa describing
the important events in our family over the last 100 years
or so. If Mom hadn’t felt the urgency to do
that, the memories might have been lost forever.
Sometime
toward the end of the first century, church tradition tells
us, early Christians felt the same need. There was
a white-haired, long-bearded old man, hunched over from
years of fishing and walking, who shuffled around with
a cane. His name was John, not John the Baptist but
John the apostle of Jesus, and his time was drawing to
a close. He was perhaps the last living close companion
of Jesus. And there was an urgency for John to pass
on what he had seen and felt and experienced in the presence
of Jesus, called the Christ. John had had perhaps
60 years to reflect on and ponder his time with Jesus. And
so, at the urging of those who were afraid of losing both
him, and an eyewitness account of Jesus…John began
to tell the story. Here is how it begins:
John
1:1-18
Maybe
John isn’t a very good storyteller…because
he gives it all away at the beginning. There are twenty
chapters after this one…but all they will do is
spell out what John tells us is true in these very first
verses. And if John can get away with telling us the
end of the story first…I want to do the same thing
this morning. We have 18 verses to think about…but
this is what I want you to take home:
If
you want to know what God is like…look at Jesus.
John
begins at…well, the beginning. It is no accident
that “In the beginning was the Word…” bears
remarkable similarity to what Cal read from Genesis: “In
the beginning God created…” John takes
us back to the very beginning. And just as the Genesis
writer tells us simply that even before creation and time,
God WAS…John tells us that the Word…WAS. The
Word was WITH God. The Word WAS God.
Now
hang with me for a moment. There are two worlds here
that John instantly brings together in these opening verses. The
first is the Old Testament world, the Hebrew world, and
the Hebrew idea of “the Word of God.” It
appears throughout the Old Testament. It conjures
up the image that when God SPEAKS…things happen. The
divine, heavenly voice of God speaks, and creates reality. The
Word is an action. And so in Genesis, God SAID, “Let
there be light” and there was light. Later,
God SAID, “Let the dry ground appear,” and
it was so.
This
is wonderfully illustrated for us in one of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia
books called “The Magician’s Nephew.” In
these books, Jesus is represented by a powerful and mighty
lion. And in this book, the Lion is shown in the process
of creating:
“In
the darkness something was happening at last. A
voice had begun to sing. It was very far away…and
hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Its
lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth
herself…It was so beautiful he could hardly bear
it…The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty
land and singing his new song. It was softer and
more lilting than the song by which he had called up
the stars and the sun; …and as he walked
and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread
out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides
of the little hills like a wave…the higher slopes
grew dark with heather. Patches of rougher and more bristling
green appeared in the valley…and trees!…All
this time the Lion’s song, and his stately prowl,
to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on.”
The
Word of God. The Word of God was given through the
prophets, as when Isaiah speaks and God says, “My
Word goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty.” It
came through the Psalmist, “He sent forth his Word
and healed them.” The Word of God. Not
a sound, but a dynamic, eternal, creative expression of
very God.
The
second world John taps into is the Greek world. John’s
gospel was written in Greek, of course, along with the
rest of the New Testament, and in that language “Word” comes
from the word “logos.” In Greek philosophy, “logos” had
to do with the supreme principle of reason, or order, in
the universe. It was the controlling power or force
that kept the world from collapsing into chaos. The
Stoic philosophers said, “the logos pervades all
things.” The Gnostic philosophers saw the logos
as the guiding, directing power of God.
What
John does here…is bring these two worlds together… “In
the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.” Everything was made
through the word. The word brought life and light. So
far, so good. But then John goes to an entirely new
place. He says that the Word…came into the
world in a Person. John moves from the creation of
the world…to the Word’s entrance into the
world, nimbly skipping over years and years and years of
history…for the purpose of landing instantly at
what for John is THE defining moment in all of human history…the
very Word of God enters physically into a dark, dark world. A
world so dark that people don’t even recognize the
light. A world very much like our world.
I
don’t think I have to convince you that our world
can be very dark. But sometimes, I am still shocked. This
week I told our Bethany staff meeting one of my favorite
quotes from the theologian Karl Barth: “Good
theology is done with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper
in the other.” Then I broke them into small
groups with the assignment to read this passage from John,
and then look through the local papers for ways that this
scripture was reflected, or ways it would speak to the
events of the day. I happened to get Section B of
the P-I, “Seattle and Northwest News.” It
was 4 pages long. Here were some of the stories:
- Wealthy
Federal Way community wants to hire exclusive, extra
police to control crime in their community.
- The
sentencing of the transsexual person who danced topless
and breathed fire from a 180-foot tower next to the freeway
in September.
- Two
young girls fondled at a Halloween Haunted House.
- A
follow-up story on a child-sex ring in Eastern Washington.
- A
local 20-year old who murdered his girlfriend, then committed
suicide.
- A
Snohomish man being hunted after a kidnapping and murder
in a drug dispute.
Four
pages. So dark. And John says, “into this
world…the Word of God came…in a Person.” Knowing
already that many would not see or hear or understand,
that they would reject Him. “The Word became
flesh…” in someone called Jesus. This
is what John had the audacity to claim.
St.
Augustine, writing in the 4th century in his famous Confessions, says
that he read many of the Greek philosophers, beginning
with Plato. And in these writings he read bits and
pieces of ideas about the Word, some part of God involved
in the creation. He says that in the philosophers
he saw something of the imagery of the light of God and
the darkness of the world. But, says Augustine, “That
the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that he came
to his own and was not received, that he gave power to
become sons of God to as many as believed…These
things I do not read (in the philosophers).”
That
the Word would come in a living, breathing person, Jesus
Christ…this was unheard of. No one sees God…not
face to face. Not even Moses, who heard God, who spoke
with God, who saw the Shekinah glory in the tent of God,
a pillar of file…even he didn’t see God. But
suddenly, here, in a life on earth, God fully reveals himself. And
so John says, If you want to know what God is like…look
at Jesus.
That
presents some problems for us. It is hard to understand. This
is perhaps the key passage behind the foundational Christian
belief in Jesus Christ as “fully human, fully God,” as
our Confessions put it. And throughout the history
of the church, Christians have struggled with this issue
of the identity of Jesus. How can “fully God” and “fully
human” be in one person? How can one Person
be THE Light, be THE Word, have authority over who becomes
a child of God? How can a spiritual being eat, walk
and breathe on earth? How can one Person show us God?
And so throughout history, people have swayed one way or
another.
On
one side, they have portrayed Jesus as fully and merely
human…as somehow leaving behind all the attributes
of being God’s divine Word, and becoming merely human. Yet
that flies in the face of this passage, it contradicts
Jesus’ miracles, his ministry of healing, his impact
on the world, his willingness to die on a cross. If
Jesus were ONLY human we throw out large parts of the Bible,
and we find ourselves asked to turn our lives over to a
man. A good man, but just a man. I am unwilling
to do that.
Then
others have gone to the other end of the spectrum. They
say Jesus was fully God…but not really human. Perhaps
he just “appeared to be human,” but it was
just a deception, just smoke and mirrors. He didn’t
actually feel hunger, or loneliness, or pain because he
was God. But here again, to believe this we would
throw out large portions of scripture including, “The
Word became Flesh,” and the things Jesus said about
Himself, and the stories of Jesus’ compassion and
love and fear and physical agony are illusions. And
we would find ourselves asked to attach ourselves to a
deceptive God, a God who does not really KNOW life and
death as we experience it, a God who at the end of the
day can only say, “I feel your pain,” but has
not experienced it or assumed it or transformed it. I
am unwilling to go there as well.
We
believe in Jesus Christ, fully human and fully God. God’s
self-revelation.
If
you want to know what God is like…look at Jesus. “And
the word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us….” OR “came
to be with us,” OR “put his tent among
us,” OR, as Eugene Peterson says “moved into
the neighborhood.”
I
want you to notice one word in verse 14. It’s “US.” Up
to this point, John has written 13 of the most profound
verses in history, yet has talked only about “The
Word, God, the world.” Profound as it is, there
is a certain distance, a certain abstraction. But
in verse 14, he slams all of it right into our lives when
he says he “made his dwelling among US.” Among
John, among John’s people…moved into the neighborhood.
I
don’t know exactly what your neighborhood is like. Maybe
when I told you those newspaper stories, they didn’t
seem too real for your world, your neighborhood. Maybe
they sounded like media bites. But our neighborhood
is just that dark. As a pastor, I talk with a lot
of people in one week’s time. In the last week,
in THIS community here, I have talked with people:
- who
have been terribly let down and wounded by people they
thought were faithful friends.
- people
who have lived on the street for years, rain and shine.
- people
who have lost people they love, and are numb or cracked
or angry.
- people
on drugs, some legal and some illegal, both struggling
to find ways to cope with a complex world.
- people
who are sick and literally unable to think clearly.
- people
crying out for friends.
That
IS our neighborhood…and it can be very, very dark. But
the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us. Jesus
does not just observe our world…he has been in the
midst of it. He knows it. He knows us. He
came here. He came solely out of love.
A
number of years ago, California was in the middle of a
long drought. Years before, the riverbed which lies
beneath the Los Angeles River had been paved to provide
a smooth concrete channel. But the drought had dried
the river up. Then one day the rains finally came…and
came, and came. And that dry river bed became a surging
wall of water. There was a young boy in that river
bed, riding his bike as he had for months and months. He
was swept away by the muddy, churning current as it smashed
by. Somebody spotted him, struggling in the water,
and called 911. Rescuers were sent to try to save
him. Television crews picked up the story, and people
watched on TV in horror as the boy was swept from one buttress
to another, unable to hold on. Fire crews with ladders,
and helicopters tried to get to him, tried to reach the
boy, but he was moving down the river so fast they couldn’t
get him. Two friends were watching their television
as the boy was swept along, watching so many trying in
vain to save him—from above, from the side. Suddenly
one of the friends watching TV cried out in anguish, “My
God, why doesn’t somebody get in the water?” It
was exactly the right answer. It was the only way…if
someone would take the risk, brave the swift current, grab
the boy and wrap him into strong arms, and pull him to
safety.
The
Word became flesh…and moved into the neighborhood. In
Jesus Christ, God jumped headfirst into the dark, dark
river, with no life preserver, no lifeline and no back-up
plan…for your sake, and for mine. We have never
seen such love as that.
John’s
message for us this morning. Do you want to know what
God is like?…then look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. Amen.
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