Sometimes to experience or hear something over and over is life-draining, where it has just become empty ritual. But sometimes repetition is just the opposite. It’s really, really good.

Two times this week I experienced something utterly repetitive, and incredibly rich. The first was on Christmas morning. I beat everyone else out of bed by about a half hour, threw on some clothes and went outside for a little walk. At that exact moment, the sun was coming up and there was a small gap in the clouds to the east. As I walked down our front steps, the entire eastern half of the sky was absolutely neon orange and pink, shading everything in this amazing light. It just lasted for about 5 minutes. It was like I had never seen a sunrise before (but I have, dozens of times).

The second experience was similar. It was Wednesday night, and we were on Whidbey Island. It was 9 o’clock at night, and my daughter Dana and I went out for a late walk on the beach. Now on Whidbey, when the sun goes down it is dark. Black, no streetlights or anything. But as we groped our way down to the beach…this amazingly bright moon came out from behind a big cloud for a few minutes. It lit up everything. It was so light, we could see our shadows on the beach! It was like I’d never seen the moon come out (but I have, hundreds of times).

So I turned to my good friend, G.K. Chesterton. No matter that he lived a hundred years ago, he might as well have been walking with me this week. In his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton talks about repetition like the movements of nature I experienced. And he says there is perhaps something important we can learn in this regard from children, when they find a game or joke they enjoy:

“ Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again,” and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.”…The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”

That’s a lovely way to look at repetition, isn’t it? It’s the difference between lifeless ritual and life-breathing liturgy.

And, speaking of repetition, this morning we want to turn one more time to the prologue to the gospel of John, the first 18 verses of the first chapter. This is the fifth week in a row we have read this exact same section of the gospel. And again, we’ll read the entire passage, but focus on the ending, verses 14-18.

Read John 1:1-18.

My old Greek professor, Dr. Story, who as a spry 75-year old used to meet me down at the gym to shoot baskets and play
H-O-R-S-E (which he made me spell in Greek) wrote a commentary on this gospel of John. And at one point he says “the interpretative pegs of the prologue concerning the (Word) are found in verses 1, 14 and 18. He was God (1:1), he became flesh (1:14) and he “interpreted” the Father (1:18).”

This morning I want to use these pegs, and we’ll touch on all three but let’s begin with verse 14. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” The presence of God in the person of Jesus.

What could be better than to know God is with us? I would venture to say that for most of us, the most important spiritual moments we have had have been those times when we experienced God’s near presence with us in some way: through a scripture speaking directly to us, through being comforted in a hard time, in a time of worship or some experience that convinced us we were in God’s presence. The odds are that your key moments of faith have come in experiencing the presence of God. It’s what we want, I think.

We’re not alone. I want to ask you to hand in here with me as we do a little Old Testament survey. Start way back with Moses, for example. Remember that Moses was a pretty forgettable character until the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness, in a bush that was on fire but didn’t burn up, and God’s voice came out: “Moses, Moses…take off the sandals from your feet, for this is holy ground.” Moses experienced God in the flames of a burning bush, with a voice that explained both God’s identity and Moses’ calling.

As Moses led the people Israel out of slavery and through their wanderings in the wilderness, God appeared to them in other ways. He continued to speak to Moses. And in the daytime He would appear as a pillar of cloud, leading the people forward on their journey. In the nighttime he would appear as a pillar of fire, leading them through the darkness.

As the people grew used to traveling, they began to pitch an extra tent called the Tent of Meeting. It was always located well outside the rest of the camp. And Moses would go there to talk to the Lord (as John read earlier from Exodus 33). When Moses headed for the Tent of Meeting, all of the people in the camp would stand outside their own tents, watching as Moses went out and entered the Tent and then the pillar of cloud would descend on it. Moses and God would talk as friends.

One day Moses even asked God to “show me your glory.” And God told him He would pass by Moses in all His goodness, all His glory, but that He would cover Moses’ face so that he could not actually see him face to face. Something similar happened later to the prophet Elijah, when God called him out on the mountain and Elijah pulled his cloak over his face and then talked to God.

So from a burning bush to the pillar of cloud to the pillar of fire to the Tent of Meeting at the outside of camp, these are ways in which God appeared and spoke to His people. But now the simple Tent of Meeting grew much more complicated, into a much larger Tent that became a sanctuary for people to worship in.

A Tabernacle, it was called, a word which means tent or dwelling. It was placed right in the center of camp. The tabernacle of Israel was 145 feet long, 72 feet wide, 7 feet high, with rich embroideries and furnishings. It seems that it was split into 2 compartments. One held housed a few of the relics of Israel and provided space to worship.

Behind another curtain within the Tabernacle was the very Holiest place, the Holy of Holies, in which was the ark of the covenant was kept with the tablets of the 10 commandments. This inner chamber was felt to be the place where God’s very presence dwelt. Only priests could enter it. The rest of the people would gather in the main part of the tabernacle to worship.

The Tabernacle was still portable, like the Tent of Meeting. It could be packed up and moved to the next location, though it was far more complicated. That was the job of the Levites, a select group of priests assigned to such work.

Then after the people Israel came into the promised land, they became geographically stable instead of nomadic. And once they were well settled, the portable Tabernacle gave way to a permanent structure: the Temple, first built by Solomon, at the center of Jerusalem.

Again, it was split into compartments, with God’s presence said to dwell in the holy of holies, ministered to by priests on special occasions. At the very first, the cloud filled the temple so much that even priests couldn’t enter, because God’s “glory” so filled the temple. Eventually, rotations were set up for priestly service. Candles were lit, incense offered, sacrifices were made on a continual cycle. Protocols were solidified.

When that first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, sacrifices were still performed on the location. Eventually it was rebuilt in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra. Then that temple was desecrated, and then eventually rebuilt on a much larger and more grandiose scale by King Herod. The maintenance of the sacrificial system, the shepherding of the people to the appropriate area, the protocols for life and worship…the temple was a focal point of life until its ultimate destruction in 70 AD.

Why am I going into all of this detail? Here’s what it feels like is happening: God is being more and more situated in a place. More and more God is housed in a building, mediated by a person, located in a forbidden section, surrounded by a system. More and more you get the feeling that God is kept somewhat distant from His people. From a burning bush in the wilderness to an enveloping cloud to radiant fire to a small tent in the wilderness to a large portable tent to a permanent building to a larger building. Where is God, if his people want to be with him?

We are not immune. We erect all sorts of things that hold God off at a distance: lists of rules, do’s and don’ts that can replace relationship. Leaders can get in the way. I talked to a pastor friend this week, who said “I feel like people want me to do church for them.” Lord, forgive me if I’m “doing church” for anyone! Buildings can get in the way, and systems. I talked with someone else who kept referring to “the church I’m attending.” It’s a common phrase, of course. But it started to bug me, because it sounded like they were attending an event or a building, “attending church” instead of being the church.

But now, the gospel writer John says to us, now something new and different is happening. And there’s one word which binds all of this together: “tabernacle”. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Literally, tabernacled among us (some versions of the New Testament actually use that word), tented among us, camped, lived in our midst, dwelt. In flesh.

Not only that, but the “glory” word that keeps popping up to mean God’s presence - around the pillar of cloud, the experience of Moses, the tabernacle, God’s shekinah glory, God’s very presence, this word is also related to that same root word, “tabernacle.”

So when the gospel writer John says that in Jesus, “the Word became flesh and lived among us,” he is saying that as a person God actually tabernacled among us…tented, lived in our very midst… “and we have beheld his glory…glory as of the only Son of the Father.”

Same God, same presence. God tabernacled.

The only other place this word “tabernacle” is used as a verb like that is in the NT book of Revelation a few times. There it tells us that in the day of the New Jerusalem, the new heavens and new earth, that “the home (tent, tabernacle) of God is among mortals, he will dwell (tent, tabernacle) with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them, and he will wipe every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more…”

So, the church has said for 2000 years, Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. But a little part inside of many of us here, and in many people out there says “Impossible! No one has ever seen God. Not even Moses, not even Elijah, the greatest representatives of Israel, even THEY didn’t get to see God.”

Exactly! John affirms it in verse 18: “No one has ever seen God.” But this is exactly the new thing. What was Jesus doing? Showing us God. In Jesus we get to see God. Jesus is interpreting, exegeting God, making him known.

That’s quite a job description, isn’t it? Jesus is making God known. One of the fun things I’m often asked to do as a pastor is to be a reference for people who are applying to school, or for ordination, or sometimes for jobs.

I did five or six of them this week. And I’m always struck by the fact that I’m being asked to “make someone known” to the college or employer that I only know partly. I feel unqualified. I can speak about this part of their life, or that experience, or this part of their personality. But I don’t know all of them, I’m not that close to them. I’m not qualified.

But Jesus is infinitely qualified to make God known. Back to verse 1. “…and the Word was God.” Jesus is qualified because he is God, God the Only Son, who is close to the father’s heart, literally “in the bosom.”

So what is it that Jesus makes known? What is God like?

• when Jesus calls a bunch of unlikely, uneducated, non-powerful people to be his closest followers, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus is moved with compassion in his very being for the crowds of people who follow after him, who need food both physical and spiritual, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus forgives a woman trapped in sin, frees her, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus overturns the moneychanging tables of those who would make money off a religious system in the name of God, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus weeps outside the tomb of his friend Lazarus who has died, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus sacrificed his very life for those who did not appreciate or accept him, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus speaks from the cross to a man also being crucified and says “This day you will be with me in paradise,” he is showing us God.
• when Jesus broke the hold of death on human beings, he is showing us God.
• when Jesus, God the Son, came to earth to be in the center of his people, unmediated, accessible, vulnerable, tabernacled, personal…he is showing us God.

And every time someone tells us that God is like this, or like that, we need to stop and think: does this square with what Jesus has shown us? Verse 18: “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

Let me close with a story that Brennan Manning once told. Joe was an older man who lived with his daughter. Joe knew he was sick and dying. His priest came to visit him. Joe told him that out of frustration he had abandoned all efforts to be close to God several years earlier. When he had discussed this frustration with one person, they had recommended he read a book on theology, of which he read 3 pages and gave up.

Sometime later, though, his best friend told him “Joe, Prayer is simply a matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here’s what I suggest. Sit down on a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and “see” Jesus on the chair. It’s okay. He promised “I’ll always be with you.”

Joe told his priest “I liked it so much, I do it a couple of hours every day.”

The priest was very moved, anointed him with oil and prayed with him. Just two days later, Joe’s daughter called the priest to tell him her dad had died.

“What can you tell me about it?” he asked her. “

”Well, when I left the house around 2:00 PM, he called me over to his bedside, told me one of his corny jokes, and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something a little odd,” she said. “Apparently just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on a chair beside his bed.”

Joe had climbed close to a God who wanted to be known, who had drawn near in Jesus. The same Jesus who is God in verse 1. The same Jesus who became flesh and tabernacled, camped out with us, in verse 14. And the same Jesus who has made the Father known in verse 18.

Repetition. We’ve read these words five times now. Familiar words. They circle back on each other. Here’s my hope: that with every reading, we are driven and drawn closer to Jesus. It’s why he came.