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SERMON:
This
Advent season we've been letting the Gospel writers prepare us for Christmas. Matthew
showed us that Jesus was descended from King David, just as the prophesy
foretold. Mark reminded us how repentance prepares our hearts to receive
Christ. Last Sunday Luke laid out the many miracles that happened around
Christ's birth and so emphasized that Christmas is not about what we can do,
but about what God has done for us.
Today
we turn to the last of the four Gospels, to hear from the apostle John. The
first three Gospels focused our attention on events that happened in human
history. But John's scope is greater. At the beginning of John's Gospel, he
brings us all the way back to eternity. John begins his Gospel with these
weighty words...
"In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God" (John 1:1-2 ESV).
Now,
God uses many different names for Himself in the Bible. Names like, Yahweh, the
Lord, the Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I'm sure you could think of
half a dozen more without much trouble. To these names John adds another
referring specifically to the second member of the Trinity. John calls God the
Son "the Word".
And
so John invites us to throw our minds back to the beginning. Before anything
existed, there was God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Glorious. Eternal. Radiant
with power and majesty. And then in verse 14 John writes the following.
This is the main portion of our sermon reading for today.
John
1:14-18 (ESV)
14 And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as
of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out,
“This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he
was before me.’ ”) 16 For
from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No
one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made
him known.
▬
One
of my favorite books is a series by Stephen King called, "The Dark
Tower". The stories in this series are built around a quest to reach the
Dark Tower. But not much is known about this tower. The people who seek it
don't really even know which world it's found in. They believe the tower to be
a sort of nexus holding infinite parallel universes together, binding existence
together like an immense linchpin. Everything is said to be tied in to the tower.
The
main character of this story is a man named Roland who wants to find the tower
in order to climb its steps to the top. If possible, Roland would see what, or
who, is in the tower's highest room.
Whether
he intended to or not, Stephen King has written into the fabric of this story many
of the questions and hopes of the whole human race. Questions about existence,
about reality, questions about God.
One
of the characters in the book expresses the desire to find the tower, but maybe
not to enter the top room. He says that perhaps he is afraid of some sort of
accounting that might come when you enter the presence of the almighty Dweller
of the tower's highest level.
Every
culture of mankind has longed to reach God. The religions produced by these
cultures have come up with different methods to climb the stairs, but each one
has had the same goal - to see, to know the Almighty Creator, the source of all
things.
But
John, a humble fisherman from the region of Galilee doesn't offer us one more
story cut from the cloth of human longing. His story is altogether different
from the concept of human beings climbing their way to the top. John says that
idea is all wrong. Something else has happened which allows us to see God.
God
Himself, the Word, became flesh and lived among us.
The
way that John writes may make him seem a bit like a dreamer and a poet. But
John had a difficult task laid on him when he began this Gospel. He had to
choose his words carefully. He had to help his readers imagine what we cannot
fully comprehend. Someone once said, "As the ant understands the man, so
we understand God".
But
even against such odds, John endeavors to make us understand what he saw when
he met Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God.
He
uses three main words to describe Jesus: glory, grace and truth. In verse
14 John says...
"...we
have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John
1:1 ESV).
What
do you think of when you hear the word "glory"? I'd guess a lot of
people think of light. Like the way that the daytime sun shines when it's noon.
Or like the way the setting sun shines differently, more condensed and powerful
as it sinks below the rim of the horizon.
Perhaps
light is part of what John is thinking of when he says that he saw the glory of
God's Only Son. Once John saw Jesus actually radiating light from every pore of
his body. On a mountain where Jesus had taken a handful of disciples to pray He
was changed, and became as bright as the shining sun.
But
there were other times when the glory of God shone out through Jesus in other
ways. How about all the times when Jesus healed people of diseases with a touch
of His hand, or with a simple word? That was God's glory radiating from Jesus as
well.
Or
how about every time when Jesus opened up the Scriptures to the people through His
teaching. Not adding new things to the Bible, but reaching into it and opening
it up, helping the people to see what it had always meant, but they had failed
to grasp. Each time Jesus showed His complete understanding of the Word, God's
glory was shining.
Or
think of how Jesus knew the minds of men. Not just the fact that He understood
how people think. There were times when Jesus knew the actual thoughts of
individuals and told them so. Each time Jesus revealed the thoughts of people
or the events of their pasts, the glory of God glimmered in His words for just
a moment.
▬
One
of the other main words John uses to describe Jesus is "truth".
John and everyone else who heard Jesus speak noticed that He didn't speak like
the other religious teachers of the day. His words weren't offered as possible
understandings of God. His words were offered as the only understanding of God.
And this isn't just to say that Jesus spoke confidently while others spoke with
reservation. When Jesus spoke the things He said were self evident. His words
held the weight of "right-ness". Even if you didn't like what Jesus
was saying, even if you spoke out against what He said, inside you still knew
that what He said was true.
Jesus
was unique. He was not merely another man teaching his own ideas. Jesus was the
only Son of the Father, teaching the unshakable truth about the way things
actually are. And this too, was a glimpse of God's glory.
▬
But
John would say that above all these other flashes of glory were the moments of
grace that came from Jesus. That's the most important word John uses to
describe his experience with the Son of God - grace. In verse 16 John
says,
"For
from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace" (John 1:16 ESV).
The
word "grace" refers to a gift given without the recipient deserving
it in any way. John saw Jesus give many of these gifts. Lunch for thousands
from a few loaves and a couple fish. Healings. Demons cast out. Leprosy
cleansed away. Spiritual insight granted. The dead raised back to life.
But
above all these "little" graces, John saw Jesus offer His own body
and soul to be beaten, mocked and crucified to death. And when all was said and
done, it came out that all of this was allowed by Jesus in order to save
sinners from the eternal punishment that our sins deserve.
The
glory of God shone out from Jesus in all the little gifts He gave people. But the
glory shone most brilliantly in the dark on the cross of Calvary. There Jesus
suffered hell on earth in order to do away with the eternity of hell that our
sins had piled up.
In
verse 17 John says...
"For
the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus
Christ" (John 1:17 ESV).
One
of the reasons John spoke so reverently of Jesus was that He saw clearly that Jesus
was not just another teacher offering another method for climbing the steps to
God. Those teachings all led to a dead end. Even Moses, who received the Law
from God Himself on Mt. Sinai could offer nothing more than another dead end.
If you take the Ten Commandments and try to use them to climb the ladder to
God, you're going to be disappointed. Trying to keep the commandments as a
staircase to God is a slippery route. One wrong step and you tumble down to the
bottom. God's standard is perfection, and no one who has ever committed even a
single sin can approach God on his own merit.
But
the Word didn't become flesh to repeat the commandments. He came to give us
Grace with a capital "G". The gift of gifts, the gift of freedom from
what we deserve. The gift of forgiveness.
Later
in his Gospel, John records the words that Jesus spoke to a religious teacher
named Nicodemus. Jesus told this man...
"...God
so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17 ESV).
On
that first Christmas day, the door at the top of the tower opened. And down
those slippery steps a sure footed figure came. Down the endless flights His
footsteps echoed quietly. And when He stepped out of the tower, His earthly
mother laid Him in a manger - a newborn human Child.
The
Scripture tells us that later He re-ascended those steps, and that all who hold
His hand by faith, cannot tumble to the bottom any longer.
▬
Let
me tell you one more story. In our country, about a hundred and fifty years
ago, a slave by the name of Booker was born on a southern plantation. He
was later released from slavery by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and
became an important leader for African Americans in the late eighteen-hundreds.
But in his early years, Booker didn't foresee greatness in his future. Listen
to the following excerpts from his book, "Up From Slavery".
"From
the time that I can remember having any thought about anything, I recall that I
had an intense longing to learn to read. I determined when quite a small child,
that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way get enough
education to enable me to read common books and newspapers" (Up From
Slavery, page 34).
"I
had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on several
occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mistresses
to carry her books. The pleasure of several dozen boys and girls in a
schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon me, and I had the
feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in this way would be about the
same as getting into paradise" (Up From Slavery, page 14).
Booker
longed to simply read. But nobody close to him knew how to read. He could get
books if he tried hard enough, and he did, but unless a teacher could be found,
it just wasn't going to happen. Without a teacher, reading would simply remain beyond
his grasp.
The
human condition is the same when it comes to knowing God. You can't truly know
God without knowing His grace. Sure, you can learn from the creation that He is
powerful. Sure, you can learn all about His rules and commandments from your
heart, conscience, and from the Bible. You can learn about His stern justice from
the same. But that's only part of God's character. In order to really know God,
you have to know His grace. And you can only know God's grace through knowing His
Son. That's why God's Son was born on the first Christmas - that we might truly
know God.
In
the final verse of our reading John writes...
"No
one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made
him known" (John 1:18 ESV).
John
invites us to the manger this Christmas with these thoughts in mind. Here lies
our Teacher. Not just a teacher of kindness and good behavior. Not just another
moral leader. But a Savior full of glory, truth, and above all - grace. A
teacher who offers to show us all that the Bible really means. A teacher who
offers to show us what the Father really looks like. A teacher who says first
of all that He has erased our sins, and who then offers to hold us tightly, and
introduce us to the Almighty.
May
the Holy Spirit fill our hearts with wonder as we gaze down into the humble
manger this year. May the Christ Child fill us with peace and with faith. And
may the Father be seen in our hearts as He is, full of glory, grace with a
capital "G" and truth. Amen.
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