Reflections on "Jesus, the Flesh Light" John 1: 1-18; John 20: 30-31

This sermon begins our Lenten series that follows Adam Hamilton's book John: The Gospel of Light and Life.  It will be an interesting book for the small groups, and it includes reading through the Gospel of John over the course of Lent.  The sermon each week will present the material that is being studied in the small groups.

A huge challenge is how to keep the sermon from being a book report or so full of information that it cannot be effective as a sermon.  Someone critiqued a sermon (not mine this time!) recently and told me that it was a sermon that was better read than heard.  I am going to have to work to keep my sermons this Lent from falling into that category.

I will try to be good about noting when I am using Hamilton's thoughts, and certainly I will put quotes around direct quotes I use from his book.  I found this week that much of his material -- for instance, his analysis of light and darkness -- is pretty basic information about John, so what I know from previous studies and preaching blends with what he is writing in his book.

(John 1: 1-18) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And 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. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known. (NRSV)

“Jesus the Flesh Light” February 14, 2016; FPC, Troy John 1: 1-18; John 20:30-31

Introduction: In my New Testament class in seminary when we began studying the Gospel of John, my New Testament professor told us, “you either have a feel for John and get John, or you don't!”

On this first Sunday of Lent, we begin our Lenten study of John:The Gospel of Light and Life by Adam Hamilton. Each week, we will have a variety of small groups to discuss a chapter in the book. My sermon each Sunday morning will kick-off the week's conversations.

I would also note that at the end of each chapter in the book is a chunk of the Gospel of John to read. If you read that each week, you will have read the Gospel of John in its entirety during Lent, which would not be harmful to you!

I hope that at the end of Lent, you will “get” John.

Move 1: The Gospel of John is different from other gospels.

a. the other three gospels – Mathew, Mark, and Luke – are known as the synoptics -- "with the same view."

1. They each have their unique qualities, but they work from the similar source materials.
2. They share many of the same stories and Jesus comes across in similar fashion in all three of the synoptic gospels.

b. John is the outlier. Lots of differences in John.

1. Location of the action.

2. In John, most of the action takes place around Jerusalem.

2. the other three gospels spend much of their time in Galilee.

b. Stories Jesus tells.

1. Jesus speaks in parables in the synoptic gospels.

2. In John, Jesus speaks in metaphors that are more obtuse.

c. Greatest difference in is the philosophical language that John uses.

1. The opening passage that we read is a great example of this.

2. Scholars believe that these eighteen verses were an early Christian hymns influenced by Greek and Jewish philosophical thought and language (Hamilton, 15)

2. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

4. You read that, and you're probably going “uh, oh, this sounds like philosophy class. How am I supposed to figure that out?”

3. That kind of language is not found in the other three gospels. They are more concrete in their language and images.

4. This philosophical language would have been accepted in Greek philosophical and Jewish philosophical circles in the time in which the Gospel of John was written.

5. In fact, most of these opening verses would have been interchangeable with other philosophers writing at that time, particularly the emphasis on “logos,” which is the Greek word for “word.”

6. Jewish philosophers loved this type of language and emphasis on the “Word.” after all, God spoke to call the world into being; God spoke through the Ten Commandment from on high; God spoke through the prophets.
7. The Gospel of John begins like another philosophical treatise on how God is the Word.
   d. But in the flow of this philosophical language, John throws a curve.

1. He moves from the language of the philosophers and makes a bold, unique statement that would never be spoken by the philosophers (Hamilton, 17)

2. He announces to the world “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

3. God is no longer “Logos” the Word that speaks from the heavens, the word that speaks from some far away place, the Word that needs to studied and nuanced to understand.

4. God is Word that come near, Word that joins with us in our human condition.

Move 2: Jesus is the Word made flesh.

a. As you will discover, the Gospel of John does not have the story of Jesus' birth.

1. No Mary receiving a visit from an angel in the night and agreeing to bear God's son.

2. No angel visiting Joseph to convince him to stay engaged to Mary.

3. No journey to Bethlehem and ending up out with the animals to give birth to the Christ-child.

4. No shepherds in the fields hearing announcements from the heavens and heading off to Bethlehem to find the new born savior.

5, no wise men traveling from the east in search of the King of the Jews who has been born.

6. Just “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

b. The Gospel of John tells a story not about the birth of Christ and all the details of that story, but about the God who chooses to step into our world and our lives.

1. We see this foreshadowed in the first verse when John begins, “In the beginning was the Word....”

2. “In the beginning” takes us back to Genesis, back to the God who chooses to create humanity.

3. That story continues in John's time, but as the philosophers share their theoretical arguments for God, John points to the God who comes in flesh.

4. Not a theory, but a God who is known to us through another person, through Jesus Christ.

6. To understand the Word of God is to know Jesus Christ, the one in whom God is made known.

7. To be in relationship with God is lived out in relationship with Jesus Christ.
8. The philosophical becomes concrete.

c. John's gospel will focus on the difference that Christ’s birth makes for all of us. (the following blog entry by David Lose, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, PA speaks to this; http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2980).

Move 3: According to John, a significant difference is Christ's call for us to abide in him.

a. Hamilton points out that in the other three gospels, the Jesus wants people to "follow me."

1. We know the story. The soon-to-be disciples are in their boats fishing.

2. The signature story happens when Jesus is walking along the beach and see people fishing in their boats. Jesus calls out to them, “follow me, I will make you fish for people,” and they get out of their boats and follow Jesus.

3. The questions Jesus asks his disciples, the challenges he puts before those he meets is about giving up their possessions, giving up their lives and following Christ.

4. I find this a powerful way to engage God's call to give up our old ways and be transformed.

b. The Gospel of John, however, has a different perspective.

1. Jesus wants people to "believe in him and abide in him" (Hamilton, 10).

2. Not follow Christ, but have new life in him.

3. Hamilton points out that the Gospel of John uses the word “life” forty-even times.

3. We read John's rationale for writing the Gospel of John earlier. John desire that we “believe that Jesus is the Christ, God's Son, and that believing, you will have life in his name.”

4. Our lives transformed when we abide in Christ’s life.

5. this emphasis on “life” is often tied to eternal life.

6 The Gospel of John is the only gospel that records the story of Jesus talking with Martha and then Mary after their brother Lazarus has died, the time when Jesus announces, ““I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11: 25,26).

c. IN his book, Hamilton shares part of article by Russell Moore who writes that for too long we have told people to invite Jesus into their lives.

1. But Moore notes that “Jesus does not want to be in your life. Your life's a wreck. Jesus calls you into his life. And his life isn't boring or purposeless or static. It's wild and exhilarating, and unpredictable [Hamilton, 21, 22 where he quotes Russell D. Moore, “A Purpose-Drioven Cosmos: Why Jesus Doesn't Promise Us an 'Afterlife,” Christianity Today 56 (February 2012): 33].

2. In the Gospel of John, John is actually less interested in the birth of a baby at Bethlehem than he is in the birth of you and I as children of God.

Move 4: Darkness and light

a. Darkness

1. Gospel of John, if you find a misunderstanding or something bad happening, it is usually under the cover of night.
2. If you have ever entered a dark room or a dark alley at night with no lights and felt a little fear and wished for a flash light to shine to bring some light to the darkness, you understand the point that John is making.
3. John looks to the darkness of our lives and our world – the things we hide in us, the things we hide from others, the things we hide from, the things we fear, and sees the need we have for light.

b. the light comes to expose the darkness.

1. The fear of the dark gives way to the light that enters.

2. Ann Lamott, and author who also teaches about writing, comments on writing: “the great writers keep writing about the cold dark place within, the water under a frozen lake or the secluded, camouflaged hole. The light they shine on this hole, this pit, helps us cut away or step around the brush and brambles; then we can dance around the rim of the abyss, holler into it, measure it, throw rocks in it, and still not fall in. It can no longer swallow us up. And we can get on with things.” Did Christ do the same when he comes as the light in darkness? (bird by Bird, 198)
3. When Jesus comes as the light in the world, he exposes the darkness and invites us to dance in the life we have in Christ.