John Message 5

New Life for an Insider

John 3:1-21

Often times, we think of what I will call “fandom” as primarily a matter of heritage and location.  So if you grew up in say Ashwaubenon, WI (next door to Lambeau field), I’d anticipate that you would be a Packer fan.  If you grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, I’d understand you being a Viking fan.  If you grew up in Ypsilante, Michigan, I’d both understand and sympathize in your being a Lion fan.  Now if you grew up in Ashwaubenon and you were rooting for Bret Favre last Sunday, then I’d consider you … despicable … (just kidding, sort of).

Most of us see spiritual “fandom” in a similar way, that’s it’s primarily a matter of family heritage and location.  If you were born in India into a Hindu family, we’d expect you to be a lover of Krishna.   If you were born in China into a Buddhist family, you would likely be pursuing a path of enlightenment.  If you were born in the United States into a Lutheran family, you would be thought of as a Christian.  This strong identification of faith and family and national heritage is one big reason why many think it so unreasonable to believe that Jesus is “the way” to God.  How could we expect, say, an Indian young person to deny their heritage and become a follower of Jesus?

This conventional human wisdom is what makes Jesus’ conversation with a man named Nicodemus rather astonishing, both to Nicodemus and to John’s readers for centuries.  It conveys that genuine spirituality is not a matter or human birth or heritage, but of divine rebirth and personal faith.  It would suggest while you can, say, inherit being a Lutheran from your parents, being a Christian is not a matter of mere family heritage or upbringing.  That’s earthly stuff and Jesus points to the necessity of new life from heaven.

Turn if you would to John chapter 3, one of the more well known passages in the New Testament.  It is evening and Nicodemus seeks out Jesus who is becoming a celebrity rabbi with a reputation for miracles.  We’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council.  Pharisees were among strictest observers of Old Testament laws and the fact that Nicodemus had attained membership into the Sanhedrin, the inner circle of Jewish leadership, meant that he had considerable ability and had earned the respect of many.  Thus Nicodemus could be considered the ultimate religious insider … if anyone had his act together as a Jewish believer, it would be Nicodemus.

He came to Jesus at night which suggest that he was trying to do on the sly … without damage to his reputation.  It’s also points to Nicodemus’ spiritual condition.    As one author puts, “(Nicodemus) own ‘night’ was blacker than he knew.”  ^[1] He was have been advanced in his knowledge of the Jewish religion, but he was still blind to  the full reality of God’s love and plan as revealed in Jesus.  Yet at the same time, the very fact that Nicodemus was seeking out Jesus meant that he was looking for something … perhaps a deeper experience of God than all his studies had provided him.  I suspect that he had the entire text of the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) memorized, but he saw in Jesus, the worker of miraculous signs, one who did not just “know” the right stuff but was a channel of God’s presence and power.  I think Nicodemus wanted more … to paraphrase the words of the U2 song, this spiritual insider still hadn’t found what he was looking for and he was hoping that Jesus just might be the source.  It could be that you have been doing the “church thing” or “the moral life thing” for a while, but you have a sense that there is more to genuine spirituality than mere human energy and religious effort.  There is …

Jesus responds to Nicodemus in verse 3:  “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” [John 3:3 (NIV)]  Jesus had this habit of saying unexpected, almost bizarre things, that would create what one author calls a “faith quake” in others, breaking apart old ways of thinking and creating a new landscape of spiritual understanding and faith.  It’s not surprising that Nicodemus doesn’t get it and thinks that Jesus is referencing physical birth.  Jesus, of course, is focusing on the spiritual and eternal.

The Apostle John in recording this conversation employs a play on words.  The Greek word translated as “again” also means “from above.”  It is likely that Jesus means both here.  Nicodemus needs to be born “again” and this birth is “from above” … meaning that is accomplished by the power of God and not from any human source.      This is birth is “from above,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, because it accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In verses 5-6:  “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”  [John 3:5-6 (NIV)]   Now there are all sorts of scholarly discussions as to what Jesus meant by “water and the Spirit.”  Likely, he was foreshadowing Christian baptism, but that was something for the future.  What Nicodemus would have understood was the baptism of Jewish converts … Gentiles who would receive a ceremonial washing when they became believers in the God of Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures.  If this is what Jesus is referencing by “water and the Spirit”, then what he is telling Nicodemus is that just like those Gentiles who were outsiders to the Jewish faith, Nicodemus the ultimate insider also needs to be converted … if he is really going to know God, he has to come to know Jesus as his Savior.  This conversion goes beyond any washing with water; it must be accomplished by the Holy Spirit who would open Nicodemus eyes’ to the truth of Jesus.  The upshot is the insider isn’t as “inside” as he thought!  Is it any wonder that Nicodemus asks, “How can this be?”  He knew he was missing something in his faith, but surely he didn’t need to become a convert.  But that is exactly the “faith quake” that Jesus wants to bring about in his life.

What about you?  The Reveal spiritual life study we’ve done here at Peace would indicate that by the way they answered the questions, one-fifth of the people who attend here on a weekend aren’t yet believers in Jesus.  Now my hunch is that a good percentage of you who fall into that group consider yourself to be a Christian because you grew up in a Christian family going to a Christian church.  You consider yourself to be an insider but when it gets down to it … Jesus is for you more of a moral example than a deliverer from sin, more a good teacher than one you would trust in as the giver of life with God, more a great historical figure than a living King you would follow.  You are not yet in a faith relationship with him and you need to be converted.  Right now Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit is inviting you to humble yourself, to recognize your need, and to put your trust in him.  You can be born again, from above.

The new birth is “from above” because it by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Secondly, it is “from above” because Jesus was sent from heaven to be crucified for us.   Jesus tells Nicodemus:  “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven–the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” [John 3:13-15 (NIV)]  The “Son of Man,” a phrase borrowed from the Old Testament prophet Daniel, is Jesus’ favorite description of himself.  The “snake in the desert” comes from an Old Testament story in which God provided a means of deliverance from a plague of poisonous snakes.  Moses erected a bronze snake on a pole and everyone who had been bitten could look at the snake and live.  So now Jesus teaches that he is the one sent from heaven who will be lifted up on a pole.  He is anticipating his own death on the cross and stating that if we put our trust in him as the crucified Savior, we will live.

The Apostle John at this early place in his Gospel is already looking ahead to Jesus’ Passion.  On the cross, he will take the load of our sin and suffer its just judgment.  On the cross, he will break the power that sin and death have over so that we can have forgiveness and life in God.  Is it to Jesus and his cross that you’re looking for life with God now and forever?  If so, you have been born from above!

Birth from above … by the power of the Holy Spirit connecting us with crucified Jesus, who was sent out by the Father’s love for all people.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16 (NIV)] … the so-called “Gospel in a nutshell.”   Now I know that in every Bible I’ve seen, that this verse is in red letters, meaning that Jesus spoke it.  But one of my favorite evangelical scholars (along with others I’ve read), notes that ancient Greek didn’t have quotation marks and it is quite likely that Jesus stops speaking in verse 15 and that verse 16 and following is John’s commentary on Jesus’ conversation.  At first I was put off by this perspective because John 3:16 is the kind of thing we’d expect Jesus to say.  But it might be even more powerful coming from the heart of John.   Because this means that his time with Jesus was an overwhelming experience of God’s love for him and for the world.  In Jesus, John saw up front and personal remarkable compassion for the poor and for the sick as well as for the educated and the privileged.  Whether Jew or Samaritan, man or woman, scholar or peasant, Jesus valued people and loved them so much that he was willing to sacrifice himself.  It’s cliché now, but when asked how much he loves us, God says this, “This much!”  And stretches his arms and he dies.

In light of such horrific tragedies like that of the recent earthquake in Haiti, I realize that there are many skeptics who would question God’s existence or his goodness.  150,000 + people dead … how can I say that God loves the world???  It’s not always easy to reconcile what can be called “natural evil” with the love of God (and this sermon isn’t the time for a lengthy discussion of this issue).  But could it be that God is using this tragedy to focus the attention of the world on the poorest country in the Western hemisphere?  Could it be that Haiti’s dysfunctional society had to be “leveled” in order for a more healthy society to be reborn?  Could it be that this is a big test for the American Christian community as to whether we are willing to reach with Christ-inspired generosity?  Someday we can ask why God allowed such things as earthquakes but don’t assume that such terrible events negate his love.  I believe that he loves the people of Haiti and in the aftermath of evil will bring his good to that impoverished nation.

I had a similar observation at a recent funeral.  The woman involved had suffered from abusive relationships and had battled depression for decades before finally taking her own life (with the possibility that a side-effect from a medication pushed her over the edge).  Given her mental illness, you might wonder whether God loved Jean.  But here was a person of great ability, a fine editor and writer, who benefited thousands of public school students through her work and brought joy to many friends and family members.  Even in the middle of the troubles of this life, God’s blessings and thus his love were evident in her life.

Are you convinced in reading that God loves the world that God loves you personally?  Living in this sin-broken world, I’m sure that you have your share of disappointments and even tragedies … and I don’t deny that certain people have more difficult paths to travel than others (perhaps you’ve wondered if God has somehow been picking on you).  But consider this … I don’t know your experience, but this week I had plenty of food to eat, I had a warm home to sleep in, good coffee to drink, had paid employment, and enjoyed the companionship of family and friends.  Those things in themselves are overflowing evidence of God’s love for me.  And even if you didn’t enjoy any of those particular blessings (and the fact that you’re not frozen means you at least had a warm bed to sleep in), you can know that Jesus gave his life for you … the ultimate evidence that God loves you and wants a love relationship with you.

Birth from above … born out of the Father’s love for us, out of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and out of the by the power of the Holy Spirit drawing us to faith in Jesus … so that we can “hear” and “see” the things of God.  Jesus speaks of it speaks in sensory terms of being able to “see the kingdom of God” and of hearing the sound of the Spirit.  John describes it in this way:  “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” [John 3:21 (NIV)]

To be born again, born from above, is to be changed.  It is to see God, self, and others in a different way and to live a different kind of life.  As one of our members wrote, “To realize the love that God has for me blows my mind.  It is difficult to understand how He could love a sinner like me.  I am so unworthy … yet if I believe the Bible then I take God at his Word and I know that no matter how messy my life becomes …. with loving arms and tender words He picks me up and dusts off my sins and tells me, “My child, I love you, now please follow me.”

How many of you have watched the movie Avatar?  I describe it as a “visual feast” as James Cameron has created in remarkable detail the world of Pandora.  But what makes the movie come alive is seeing it in 3D.  I took my 3D glasses off on one occasion during the movie and the scenes looked flat, far less life-like.  Seeing the movie in 3D, the scenes become vivid, spectacular experiences.

Faith in Jesus is like putting on 3D glasses.  You see the world lit up with the love and truth of God.  You experience his presence in the nitty-gritty of life.  What others would label as mere happy coincidences, you see as evidence of God’s goodness.  What others would view only as tragedy, you see as opportunity to bring divine help and healing.  What appears to others as ultimately purposeless existence, you see as life rich with divine purpose and opportunity.  You are moved to believe in and follow Jesus.

By the way, we’ll find the seeker Nicodemus at the end of John’s Gospel preparing Jesus’ body for burial.  Evidently, God had turned the light on in his life.  He had become a follower of Jesus.  He had become a real insider … not a matter of heritage or upbringing, but birth from above.

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^[1] Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (186). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

The Unpredictable, Uncontrollable Spirit

One intriguing tidbit in John 3 that won’t make this weekend’s message are these words from Jesus:  “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” [John 3:7-8 (NIV)]

We have here a play on words … for the Greek word pneuma can mean in the New Testament context “Spirit,” “spirit,” or “wind.”  How it gets translated depends on the context and in this section Jesus compares the work of the Holy Pneuma with the physical pneuma.  For the ancients, winds were a matter of mystery.  Today, we may better understand the meteorology of wind blowing from high pressure to low pressure areas.  But there remains elements of mystery … for example, it isn’t completely clear to me why the area in front of Sacred Heart hospital is almost always windy (and cold!).

Jesus  is using a comparison to paint a picture of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.  The new birth of spiritual life in Christ is not of understandable, earthly origin.  It is not ultimately about family of origin or social factors or a particular church ministry … however influential such forces are.  It is about God doing a powerful (and I would call it, miraculous) work in the life of a person so that they can receive Christ, believe in him, confess him, and follow him.

Jesus may also be hinting at what Lutherans embrace as one of most important Biblical paradoxes:  that God doesn’t force himself on people (we can reject the work of the Holy Spirit) and yet we can’t believe in Jesus without the Spirit giving us the gift of faith (“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– ” [Ephes. 2:8 (NIV)]) All of which is to say that if we are believers all the credit goes to God but if we aren’t, all the blame falls on us.  There is mystery in all this as to why the Spirit breaks through resistance in one person and connects them to Jesus and why others continue to live apart from God.  As Jesus puts it, “… the wind blows wherever it pleases.”

The implications of this for our own walk with Jesus and our desire to influence others are  significant.  We won’t always know in what circumstances that the Spirit is going to blow a fresh wind into our lives.  But we continue to go to his Word, participate in worship, read Christian authors, get away for solitude and prayer, etc., trusting that the Spirit will work when and how he pleases to give us new and deeper experiences of life in Jesus.  Further, we don’t give up on our efforts to influence others for Jesus despite weeks or even years of resistance.  For we don’t have a full grasp on what God is up to or when a spiritual breakthrough will occur.  Finally, we let God know how much we’re relying on him as we pray regularly that the unpredictable, uncontrollable Spirit would blow powerfully in and through us.

Pastor Mark

John Message 4

John 2:13-25

Crashing the Party (with Passion)

Conservative, Liberal, or Radical?

Consider the following definitions:

conservative: disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.

liberal: favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.

radical: of or going to the root or origin; thoroughgoing or extreme, esp. as regards change from accepted or traditional forms.

Now which of these labels do you think the majority of Americans would apply to committed Christians?  How many of you think … conservative?  liberal?  radical?  OK, now which of these labels do you think best apply to Jesus Christ in light of the story of his cleansing the Temple … conservative?…liberal?…radical?  Interesting discrepancy.

I actually think Jesus was a radical in all the ways that really count … he was radical in his desire to give honor to his heavenly Father.  Therefore he was radical in the alignment of his life with the Father’s will.  Further, he was radical in his desire that others would come to know the Father’s love and be in relationship with him.  Finally, he was radical in confronting people who were just going through the motions to move them toward passionate love for and worship of God…just like Jesus in his devotion for his heavenly Father.  It’s what the ancient Greeks called “zalos” … from which we get our word “zeal” … a passionate commitment to someone or something.  Jesus was a person of zeal for God.

It’s interesting then, that the overall perception of those who claim to follow Jesus is so different from that the perception of Jesus himself.  Why is that?  Part of the reason is one of language; since the national news media is obsessed with politics (and secondarily, celebrity … dare I say, Tiger Woods), words like conservative, liberal, and radical have taken on an increasingly political connotation.  And it’s true that there has been some alignment with those who are theologically conservative (holding to the historic teachings from God’s Word) also being morally conservative (holding to historic understandings of right and wrong) and then ending up as politically conservative (because the political “right” has at least given lip service to traditional morals).  Thus “dedicated Christian” has come to equal “conservative” in many people’s minds, including the minds of many Christians themselves … and again, that word “conservative” is dominated by political overtones.

There are a number of negatives to this situation … one of which is that many Christians have been led to think that politics (especially national politics) is a lot more important than it really is.  It strikes me that the New Testament is mostly silent on the political machinations of the Roman Empire because what the government did or didn’t do was ultimately irrelevant to the first generations of people seeking to follow Jesus.  Even when those in power chose to persecute Christians, the path of Jesus remained the same … radical love for and obedience to God (which by the way was way, way out of step with the surrounding culture … and those first Christians were determined to walk the path of Jesus anyway!).

Let’s be clear, the ultimate health of the Christian Church in America will be not be determined by conservative, liberal, or radical politics in Washington, D.C.   I won’t go so far to say that politics is totally irrelevant … Christians can and should be concerned about matters of justice and effective government.  But I’m struck by the fact that the most growing, vibrant churches in the past 50 years have thrived in places that have had some of the worst, oppressive, corrupt governments … like China under Mao and the “kleptocracies” of Africa (governments dominated by corruption and wholesale theft).  When it comes to church health and our impact on society, what matters is not what the government is doing but how Christians are living out their faith and whether we are becoming more like Jesus.

The Radical Christian

Which points to the greater problem with Christians taking on the label of “conservative:”   … we come to understand that God’s primary goal for us as followers of Jesus is “to hold the line” on what we believe and teach regarding the Bible and morality.  As long as we do that well, are “conservative” by staying doctrinally faithful, we’ve done our job.  And don’t get me wrong, as a Lutheran pastor, I take very seriously remaining faithful to God’s Word.

But the Bible is clear that holding onto certain beliefs is only a part of a larger picture of the Christian life which involves significant personal change … character transformation … formation into the very likeness of Christ.  The Apostle Paul writes, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” [Romans 12:2 (NIV)]  And again from Paul:  “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you … [Galatians 4:19 (NIV)]  And then from Jesus himself from the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven … Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” [Matthew 7:21,24 (NIV)]  These kinds of verses point to a life which is far from conservative if by that we mean preserving existing conditions … of settling for the status quo.  It is instead a life which pursues change … a life which recognizes that each one of us has a long way to go in living a fully Christ-like life and therefore we are called to seek out God zealously, with passion, so that he might radically change us from the inside out.

I’m brought back to something that I believed in college and have found easy to forget given the day to day realities of marriage, mortgage, parenting, and yes, even ministry.  What attracted me to Jesus was not that it would be a conservative life, but that he was calling me to a radical kind of commitment.  He has given his life for me not so that I can live a safe, conventional American lifestyle but so that I live with him in full devotion now and for an eternity.  However the slow the change has been in my life (and it’s been slow), the overall picture is one of radical change … to go from focusing on American materialism to gauging success in spiritual terms, from being an American individualist to seeing the good life as one lived in community with others, from an American self-sufficient, self-centeredness, to a God-dependent, Jesus and other-centeredness.  As Jesus put it so radically, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” [Mark 8:35 (NIV)]

Why Cleanse the Temple?

It is through the lens then not of radical politics, but of radical commitment to God, that we read this story of Jesus’ cleansing the Temple, of his crashing the “party” of the religious establishment with fervor for God.  Unlike the other Gospels who put this event in the final week of Jesus’ life, John places it at the relative beginning of his Gospel, and scholars argue whether this means that there were two Temple cleansings or whether John had a particular reason to place it where he does.  Martin Luther is probably right that in the end, it doesn’t make much difference.  I’m persuaded by the understanding that there was one Temple cleansing and that John puts it out of chronological order at the beginning of his Gospel because from the get go, he wants to show how radically different Jesus was from normal Jewish rabbis and why he would end up being crucified.

The time of the Passover was approaching and the folks in the Temple were gearing up for lots of Jewish pilgrims coming to worship.  They would need to purchase birds or animals for sacrifice.  Further, every Jewish male was required to pay the half-shekel Temple tax and this had to be done using a particular silver coin known for its purity.  Therefore Jewish pilgrims arriving from all over the Roman Empire needed to have their native currency exchanged for the one accepted in the Temple.   Sellers and money-changers provided an important service, so then why did Jesus drive them out?

I had always thought that Jesus’ quote from the Old Testament as recorded in the other Gospels was the key:  “Is it not written:  ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” [Mark 11:17 (NIV)] This would seem to indicate that the Temple merchants and money changers were cheating their customers, taking advantage of these pilgrims so many miles from home.  But the historical record doesn’t confirm this.  Moneychangers were not considered as one of the professions that took advantage of people and although Temple leaders were criticized over a lot of things, profiting from Temple sales wasn’t one of them.  So if economic exploitation wasn’t the issue for Jesus, what was?

One clue can be found in the words of Jesus recorded by Mark and John.  As noted, in the Gospel of Mark Jesus states, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” … John writes:  “To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” [John 2:16 (NIV)].  The outer Temple courts, also called the Court of the Gentiles, seen here in a model, were expansive areas surrounding the central Court of Israel where the sacrifices were offered.  Only Jews could enter these sacred buildings.  If you were a non-Jewish God-fearer who had come to worship the Lord but had not yet take the step to be circumcised, your place of worship was in the outer courts.  This according to Jesus was your house of prayer; but now the area had become like a Greek marketplace.  Further, there is evidence that this had been a fairly recent development in Temple history … that for only a couple years, merchants who had previously set up shop on the nearby Mount of Olives were now allowed into the Temple itself.

The situation could be compared to our asking all non-Lutherans to worship out in the Gathering Space among lines of people waiting for doughnuts, having conversations, and ordering lattes.  It would be a very distracting atmosphere taking away from a person’s encounter with God.  So also the Temple Courts filled with animals and merchants was a cacophony of activity… taking away from the worship of God.  Thus the radical Jesus clears out the merchants moved by his passionate commitment to God and his worship.

A second, related clue has to do with the verse Jesus quoted from the prophet Jeremiah regarding the “den of robbers.” [Jeremiah 7:9-11 (NIV)]  Jeremiah isn’t referring to Temple merchants cheating people, but to the Jewish elite in general exploiting others … and more specifically, of their robbing God of the glory that was due to him alone, for they worshipping false gods like Baal.

It could be then that Jesus drives out the moneychangers and merchants as a symbolic protest against what I’ll call Herod’s Temple Inc. and the priestly elites becoming more concerned with business, ritual, and power than with God.  It was a criticism of the groups like the Essenes (of the Dead Sea Scrolls fame) that the Temple hierarchy had become polluted by its close association with the Roman authority … indeed, gaining and maintaining power, political and economic, is seductive.  It could very well have led the leaders away from a single-minded focus on the glory and worship of God.  And the radical Jesus clears out the Temple as statement condemning their duplicity and emphasizing his passionate commitment to God and his worship.

Thirdly, Jesus’ enigmatic response to the questioning by the Temple authorities leads to an additional clue.  We read in chapter 2 beginning at verse 18:  “Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” he Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body.” [John 2:18-21 (NIV)]

Jesus is hinting at a new temple that will become the center of worship … that temple is himself … his body crucified and risen.  [Ephes. 2:14-16 (NIV)]  One author writes, “He is claiming nothing less than the reconstituting of the entire worship of God’s people around his own person and mission. The temple will pass into oblivion, not only because it is physically razed, but because it is spiritually obsolete. Jesus’ body, offered up in sacrifice and raised up in power, will be the new temple where God and humanity, creator and creature, meet face to face. ‘The action of Jesus is more than an example of prophetic protest against corrupt religion: it is a sign of the end of all religion.’^[1] Religion is about our reaching God, but the Jesus’ way is about God reaching down to us.  The glory for salvation and the passion of our worship all belongs to God.

The Radical Christian Re-Visited

I hope you see the central thread in all these clues … Jesus had a radical passion for God and his worship … how about you and me?  Here are a few possible indicators as to your passion level …

• Is your experience in the worship service more about evaluating how well it went (how interesting, level of excellence, etc.) or is about receiving from God and responding to God.  In short, is this all about God or about you?
• Is your Christmas season more about gifts and glitz or is it about Jesus and his birth?  Will you send out Christ-centered Christmas cards, have Advent devotions personally or with your family, make worship central to your Christmas Eve/Day celebration?  In short, is Christmas about God or about you?
• As you consider your year-end finances, are you thinking of doing as much spending as possible on yourself and your loved ones or are you committed to giving 10% or more of your income for church, other ministries, and charitable efforts?  Is short is money management about God or about you?
• Are you trying to earn God’s favor by being a good person or have you received the gift of life with God from Jesus?  Do you recognize your daily dependence upon God’s goodness or do you live with an arrogant illusion of self-sufficiency?  In short, is life now and forever about God or about you?

Yeah, I know these questions suggest a radical, not a safe, conservative life of faith.  I believe it’s what happens when we follow a radical; and it is through Jesus and with him that his kind of passion for God is ignited within us.  It is ignited as we go to Bethlehem and see God the Son born for us.  It is ignited as we see Jesus reach out to the down and outers of his world and offer his gracious love.  It is ignited as we go to the hill of Calvary and see him crucified, becoming the ultimate sacrifice for our sin, so that we can be forgiven.  It is ignited as we go to empty tomb and see him resurrected, having defeated death itself and the powers of darkness.  I pray that it will not only the candles on Advent wreaths that will be lit this season.  May God set our lives on fire for him.

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^[1]Bruce Milne, The Message of John : Here Is Your King! :with Study Guide, The Bible speaks today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), 69.

John Message 3

The Life of the Party (with Abundance)

John 2:1-11

I have never been to an archeological dig although I have seen paleontologists at work at a site with lots of dinosaur bones and I suspect the work is similar … pain-staking labor as the excavators go so carefully layer by layer seeking to discover and not in the process destroy artifacts and evidence.  I don’t think that I have the patience to do that kind of work … but I can appreciate the sense of excitement as researchers begin uncovering the next layer of history, not quite sure of what they will find.  Since ancient cities usually kept building on top of the previous eras ruins (forming what in the Middle East are called tels … hills or mound), to go deeper to go backwards in time.  An example in Israel of such a tel is the site of Megiddo, 26 layers of the ruins of an ancient city in a strategic location.  Archeologists have discovered there the remains of a Christian church dating from Roman times.  They have uncovered a 54 square meter large mosaic with a Greek inscription stating that the church is consecrated to “the God Jesus Christ.”  How cool is that!

This morning, I can’t promise something quite as exciting, but I do want to take us on Scriptural excavation.  We are going to go layer by layer through the story of Jesus’ miracle at a wedding in Cana.  Going deeper in this case doesn’t necessarily mean discovering things of greater importance.  It is rather that we gain additional insights from the text and thus greater richness in applying God’s Word to our own lives.

Let’s the survey the site for our Bible “dig” as we go over the basics of the story.  Jesus was invited to a wedding in the village of Cana … in the region of his hometown.  We’re not told the relationship he had with the bride and groom … but given the presence of his mother, Mary, it’s a guess that there was a family connection.  Weddings were a big deal in ancient Jewish society.  Ideally they would last seven full days … days of feasting, drinking, and time with the new couple.  “A wealthy person might throw a public banquet for a whole city at a wedding; those of less wealth would still invite as many persons as they could.” [Keener, p. 499]

It was not uncommon for guests to show up in the middle of the celebration and Jesus arrives on the third day [there is much scholarly speculation on the significance of the third day … that perhaps John was foreshadowing the resurrection joy on the third day following Jesus’ death).   At any rate, the party is on … but then social disaster strikes.  There has been poor planning and they have run out of wine.  This is a huge embarrassment for the bride and groom and their family.  It may only have resulted in temporary hiatus in the festivities while more wine was purchased.  But horror of horrors if they had already spent all their money … then the guests would have to be sent home and the family would be shamed for years.  Did I say that they took their weddings very seriously!

Mary lets Jesus know of the predicament.  She obviously believes he can do something about it … we guess that she had seen his power displayed around the home.  Jesus’ response to his mother is a classic, “Dear woman, why do you involve me?”  More than once I’ve used that line with Lynette with some degree of effectiveness … husbands, I recommend it.  Seriously, Jesus was not disrespecting his mom but rather communicating that he was no longer the son obeying his mom’s directives … now he was solely doing the will of his heavenly Father.   [“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38 (NIV)]

Still Mary is amazing … hers is a simple and profound faith that whatever Jesus has in mind will be good.  She says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  They do … as Jesus instructs them to fill up six large stone jars with water (more on their significance later) and then has them draw some of it out for tasting by the master of the banquet (a person not unlike the banquet coordinator who was assigned to make sure all the guests were served and well-behaved).  The banquet master is amazed and praises the groom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” [John 2:10 (NIV)]

I’m sure at this point that the groom was dumbfounded, probably mumbling something like, “Well … yeah … we thought we’d save the best for … last.”  Certainly the wedding bash went on in an even more festive mood.  Most people didn’t know anything significant happened other than the fact that “This is really good wine!”  But the servants knew … and word gets spread … water had been turned into wine!

A Sign

At the surface level, this story is obviously about Jesus beginning to reveal his divine power.  The Apostle John calls this a “sign” pointing to the divinity of Jesus.  He writes, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” [John 2:11 (NIV)]  John will provide the reader a total of 7 such signs in his Gospel:

1)      Turning Water into Wine at Cana

2)     The Healing of the Royal Official’s Son

3)     The Healing of the Paralyzed Man

4)     The Feeding of the Five Thousand

5)     Jesus Walking on the Sea

6)     The Healing of the Blind Man

7)     The Raising of Lazarus from Death

He explains near the end of the Gospel:  “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” [John 20:30-31 (NIV)]

Now John realizes that simply doing miracles is no guarantee that people will come to faith.  It wasn’t that people of that era were overly skeptical.  It was more that they believed in the power of the occult and thus having miraculous power was no sure sign of God’s presence.  Jesus himself was accused of gaining his power from the devil.  Further, claims of someone possessing extraordinary powers weren’t unique to Jesus.  For example, stories were told of the Roman emperor Vespasian performing some miraculous healings (69-79 AD) thus giving credence to the newly crowned Flavian dynasty.   Telling miracles stories was a not infrequent thing in ancient biographies.

Nevertheless, the Apostle John knew that it was important part of making his case for Jesus’ divine identity and mission.  They helped to authenticate his claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life.   Jesus himself recognized the power of signs to lead to faith:  “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” [John 14:11 (NIV)]  And in fact, these acts of power earned Jesus a hearing and would be path for some (certainly not for all) to faith.

If miraculous signs can lead to faith, then the question is asked, “Why doesn’t God do them today?”  That question can be answered in a variety of ways … first of all, miracles do continue to occur, although historically they tend to be more numerous when the Gospel is first entering a region … and thus as in Jesus’ day, they help earn a hearing for the Good News of Jesus.  Secondly, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my share of remarkable experiences that if not “miraculous” have been signs for me of God’s presence and guidance.  Like walking and running around with a blood clot for a month in my leg but not suffering a life threatening event until I’m at Midelfort Clinic.  Then going to a running camp and getting a roommate who had suffered two such clotting episodes … which my physician guessed was a one in a million pairing… and I felt was a clear message from God telling me to stay on anti-coagulant medication.

But here is what I see is an even clearer “sign” of God’s amazing power … it’s that our blood clots when we are cut so that we don’t bleed to death but regulates itself so we don’t clot to death.  This is a picture of the blood clotting cascade in which a variety of proteins work through a series of reactions to seal a cut.  Science has helped to show us just how complex this process is and in the very explanation creates a heightened sense of wonder.  And in general, the scientific enterprise, far from being anti-religious, has helped to show us just how amazing is the universe God has created from distant galaxies to the intricacies of our own bodies.  You can argue that science textbooks and articles are filled with “signs” from God … the question is whether we’re paying attention.   How has God shown himself to you?

A Service

Layer one of the story of Jesus’ miracle at Cana is that it was and is a sign for his divinity.  Digging down a bit to a second layer, this miracle is an act of service.  Now you might argue that it doesn’t seem as important as is his later miracles of healing and raising the dead.  After all, this is just about wine and partying, isn’t it?

Don’t underestimate the significance of wine in the region of Galilee which was known for its vineyards and wine industry.  But more than that, wine was important as a symbol for table fellowship and celebration.  Those sensitive to alcohol abuse should note that ancient wine tended to be less potent than what we serve today and frequently was watered down for meals and extended parties (because the ancient Jews viewed drunkenness very unfavorably).  Wine was a standard element of daily life in the Mediterranean world and it was an important part of festive occasions.  It was also a symbol of God’s abundant provision.  In the Old Testament we read:  “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine–the best of meats and the finest of wines.” [Isaiah 25:6 (NIV)]  You have to like verses like that.  Jesus in providing more wine and a better wine for the wedding feast was an agent bringing God’s abundant blessing.

Beyond this, any self-respecting Jewish groom did not run out of food and beverage at his wedding!   You might think of it this way:  There are many meals in which success is measured by preparing enough food but not so much that there will be leftovers that will languish in the refrigerator.  But in many households, success is measured differently at a holiday meal like Thanksgiving.  At a holiday meal, success is having abundance and therefore lots of leftovers.  I personally hope that all the squash gets eaten (never happens), but I want leftover turkey, dressing, and gravy. At the very least, at a Thanksgiving meal you don’t want to run out of the favorites.

That’s what a Jewish wedding celebration was to be like … thus the horror that they had run out of wine … kind of like running out of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.  Unthinkable!  But Jesus saved the day.  Even if as he told his mother that this not yet his time to put his power on public display, he would serve this couple and make their celebration truly memorable.  How might Jesus best serve you and your family this holiday season?

An Exchange

So this story is about a sign and an act of service, but we can dig down to a third layer which is all about the stone jars [which we’re going to represent by this milk can].  They were used to hold water for purification purposes according to Old Testament law and its accompanying traditions.  Ritual purity was different from getting physically clean.  Everyone got dirty walking village streets and working in the fields … and ordinary washing would suffice.  But orthodox Jews took it one step further, setting themselves apart for a holy God by doing ritual washings.  This was necessary if one became ritually unclean through a variety of circumstances like coming into contact with dead things ranging from human bodies to dead insects, touching certain bodily fluids (including your own), or rubbing shoulders with unclean people like non-kosher, uncircumcised Gentiles.  Ideally, ritual washings were done with “living water” … running water in rivers or rainwater … but the less strict might simply draw water for a ritual bath.

In the case of the wedding, the ritual washing had already been done, thus the jars were empty.  But Jesus tells the servants to fill them up again … exchanging ritual purposes   for those of celebration.  A strict religious person like a Jewish Pharisee would have viewed such an exchange of water for wine as sacrilege.  In fact, there was a specific mention in rabbinic law that wine was not to be mixed with water if the water was to be used for purification.  But Jesus valued the joy of the wedding couple and the celebration of their marriage to be more important than an outward ritual.  The stone jars exchanged purposes; and this is the one of many examples in Jesus’ ministry in which people were more important than rules, God’s heart more important than human traditions.

How we need to hear that in tradition bound churches!  A couple weeks ago I was involved in a consultation up in Rice Lake and one source of conflict at the church surfaced in several conversations:  between those who preferred traditional worship (offered in the early service) and those who preferred more contemporary worship (really a blended service in the later hour).  When he gave our report to the congregation, the lead consultant Dwayne Lueck told them straight out, “Get over it.”  In fact, if you ask a First Lutheran, Rice Lake member what he or she remembers from Dwayne’s talk, that’s what it will probably be:  “Get over it.”  Because Jesus has this habit of exchanging pipe organs for guitars to reach younger Americans or turning bar room tunes into hymn melodies (which is what Martin Luther supposedly did) to reach 16^th century Germans or making whatever changes to our churches and our individual lives if it will mean greater opportunity for us to bring God’s love and blessings to people.

It’s not a matter of throwing out all traditions … but of being more concerned with divine purposes.  When Jesus enters our lives, he has this habit of taking brokenness exchanging it for healing, of taking faulty thinking and exchanging it for clarity, of taking mere good intentions and exchanging them for actual service, of taking good and exchanging it for better.  Is there something Jesus wants to change in your life’s patterns, in your lifestyle, so that you can have a greater spiritual impact on others?

An Extravagance

Finally, the bottom layer, did you notice how much wine Jesus made?  There were six stone jars each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.  [John 2:6 (NIV)]  That means that Jesus made 120-180 gallons of wine.  That would be the equivalent of 12-18 of these milk cans.  That’s a lot of wine!  That is an extravagant amount of wine … overkill, even for a wedding feast that was going to last a few more days.   If I invited over to my home and I had just one of these milk cans full of vintage wine, you’d be thinking “This is going to some party!”

Extravagance … abundance … that is what Jesus promises and delivers to his followers.  It’s an abundant life as we receive his love and forgiveness.  It’s an abundant life full hope and purpose.  It’s an abundant life of family, friends, and fellow Christ-followers.  It’s an abundant life of service and contribution.  It’s an abundant life as God provides food, clothing, shelter, etc. extravagantly in this nation.  I hope you gave thanks to him for all this, this Thanksgiving.  And the best is yet to come in the glories of heaven.  What aspect of Jesus’ abundance do you need more of this holiday season?  Ask him … he gives extravagantly!

John Message 2

A Dream Come True

John 1:17-51

High Expectations

It’s human nature to want a messiah … one who will make our dreams come true.  In the baseball world, fans wait for their pitching messiah.  I’ve been a Cubs fan since 1964 and over those years we’ve had pitchers who we thought might lead us to the promised land of the World Series:  Ferguson Jenkins, Greg Maddox (we traded away that ‘Messiah’), Kerry Wood and Mark Prior,  and … well, the last couple seasons, Carlos Zambrano (probably not our messiah). But still we wait with every year bringing renewed hope followed by disappointment.  There is likely no baseball messiah for Cubs’ fans …

You see similar messianic hopes in the political world.  I remember after the 8 years of the Clinton administration that for conservatives, George W. Bush was the political messiah … and after 8 years of the Bush administration, for liberals, Barack Obama was to fulfill America’s dreams.  Somehow no matter our political leanings, we seem to forget that all American presidents are fallible individuals with limited power and that even the best of leaders will not make this country a paradise.  No political messiahs.

Nor economic ones.  I’ve been listening to a book published in 2000 entitled The Lexus and the Olive Tree … it’s about economic globalization.  The author Thomas Friedman makes the observation that in the 1970’s, an economic minister in Mexico might be able to call up a small group of bankers in New York in order to stabilize the value of the Mexican peso.  But in the 1990’s in the era of globalization, the minister watched as the value of the peso plummeted and he had no one to call, because there is no one in charge of what Friedman calls the electronic herd of investors and currency traders.  Whether it scares you or comforts you, there is no one in charge of the global economy.  So let me reiterate something I said several years ago during the Bush administration which continues to hold for President Obama.  When a pollster calls and asks how well you think the president is handling the economy, you say that the question is nonsense.  I have this vision of a national movement starting in Eau Claire so that 20 years from now, news channels will report:  “In answer to the question as to how the president is handling the economy, 10% were favorable, 10% were unfavorable, and 80% replied, “Stupid question.”  No one “handles” the global economy; there is no economic messiah.

Still, it’s human nature to long  for one … thus we might have some empathy for the ancient Jews who for centuries longed for God to keep his promise and send them his Messiah, his anointed deliverer.  They had high expectations.  As leaders stepped forward, hopes were raised.  One named Judas Maccabeus (meaning “Judah the Hammer” … sounds like a pro wrestler) had military success in 160’s BC against those who wanted Greek culture and idolatry to dominate Judea … but he was killed in battle … and in the end, foreign power continued to dominate the region.    “Judah the Hammer” was no Messiah.

Another guy named Judas the Galilean led a tax revolt in 6 AD against the Romans.  He was credited in starting the militant Zealot group which over the next decades would look for opportunities for guerrilla attacks against the Roman occupiers.  Judas’ fate and those of his followers?  Dead!  No Messiah.

Still people waited expectantly … and these were people of faith, believing that if was going to be any kind of decisive deliverance, it would have to be a God-thing.  It was in this environment of fervent messianic hopes that a rather strange man named John the Baptist began his ministry (anybody who lives on a grasshopper diet can hardly be considered mainstream).  Early on, John was asked if he was the Christ (the Greek word for Messiah or “anointed one”).  John said, “No, I’m not the guy.  But I baptize in order to prepare people for Messiah’s coming.”

Then one day Jesus of Nazareth came to be baptized.  John testified, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.” [John 1:32-34 (NIV)]  It was at Jesus’ baptism that John the Baptist became convinced that this ordinary looking guy was not ordinary at all.  He was their dream come true, the one they had been waiting for … for John had seen the Holy Spirit come from heaven and anoint this Jesus with power.

The Lamb of God

So the next time Jesus showed up, John the Baptist said, “Look, there’s Jesus Maccabeus” … Jesus the Hammer … right?  After all if the hope was that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed deliverer, one would have expected that Jesus would raise up a military force to smash Roman control and take power.  That’s clearly what many in the crowds anticipated a couple years later when Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday.

But it wasn’t “Jesus the Hammer.”  John the Baptist said, “Look the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” [John 1:29 (NIV)]   “Look the Lamb of God.”  There are certainly many astounding things in John’s Gospel; but this title given to Jesus early on by John the Baptist ranks among the most surprising.  For who would have possibly thought that the Messiah would come as a lamb and not a hammer… as a sacrifice rather than a conqueror?  No one would have expected that … but God had shown John that this is what the Messiah would be … his sacrificial lamb given our sins.

Somehow I doubt that John’s listeners could have fully grasped the implication of his words.  But as good Jews, they knew the tradition.  For centuries, animals had been offered at the Temple as a sacrifice for sin.  In the book of Leviticus, it was stipulated, “If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect.” [Leviticus 4:32-33 (NIV)]  At the Passover feast, every family was to butcher a lamb for the meal in memory of the first Passover in which the blood of a lamb was put on the doorframes of homes so that the divine angel of death would pass over those dwellings and spare the lives of the firstborns.

The picture of a lamb offered as a means of deliverance from sin and death was embedded deeply in ancient Jewish culture.  And John said that God’s anointed deliverer was to be such a Lamb.   It was a title fulfilled on the cross … on which Jesus the Lamb of God was offered to bear the guilt of all of humanity’s sins.  There is mystery here as to how the death of any single person, even a divine/human person, could possibly be an event of cosmic liberation.  But that is the unlikely testimony of the New Testament.  It was as if the hundreds of thousands of animal sacrifices done over centuries at the Jerusalem temple were only an incomplete anticipation of the one horrible sacrifice of Jesus … which for us would be glorious.  The Apostle Peter affirms, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” [1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV)]

Jesus the Lamb is our dream come true.  For if you’re like me, you know you’ve got a sin issue.  You know that at whatever your level of goodness … daily you deal with things like lustful thoughts, daily you ignore opportunities to serve, daily you treat people as objects who serve you or as interruptions to your agenda, daily you stretch the truth or tell outright lies to make yourself look better, daily you are a sinner in need of forgiveness.  And if John the Baptist was right, then Jesus offers you what only he can give:  He offers you his sacrifice and the complete forgiveness of all your sins.

There are some who say that Americans don’t have a strong sense of sin anymore … that we think we’re all just OK, doing the best we can, basically all good people.  The counter evidence to this is that studies show that we lie a lot … that regularly Americans speak falsehood to cover up the reality in our lives.  That would indicate to me that deep down, we know we’re not OK, that deep down we know of our guilt, our lusts, our lovelessness.  If that wasn’t the case, we could just tell the truth.  Lying is our defense mechanism, wishful thinking … but there is better solution:  confession/forgiveness/freedom from the Lamb of God.

L:        We come to the Lamb of God to make confession.

C:        Jesus our King and our sacrificial Lamb, we come before you in humble adoration, but not in unholy fear.  We acknowledge our unworthiness, but claim your forgiveness.  We know that we have failed you, that we have sinned in thought, word, and action.  Hear our confession, gracious Monarch of the Cross.  Forgive and rule us.

L:        Fellow sinners and fellow saints, our King has heard the confession we have made this day.  He will not speak a condemning word from a distant throne, but comes into our world to suffer with us, for us, and to die on a cross.  His word of liberations restores us and his power lifts us in service to him.  You are forgiven by the blood of the Lamb of God.

C:        Christ is the King!  We are his and we are free!

The Messiah

Bible scholars have noted that the first chapter of John has more titles for Jesus than any other in the New Testament.  Several of these titles are spoken after individuals have had their first encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.  He seemed to have an immediate, powerful impact on people he met.  John the Baptist introduced two of his followers to Jesus … one of these men was Andrew who then went to find his brother Simon (whom Jesus would nickname Peter, “Rocky.”)  Andrew told Peter, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). [John 1:41 (NIV)]  Living in this skeptical age, we might find it hard to believe that Andrew so quickly had come to this conclusion … how could he be so sure that Jesus was the one they had had been waiting for.   The writer John doesn’t tell us what Jesus said to or did with Andrew.  What we know is that Andrew’s life was changed forever.  It’s the kind of impact that Jesus has had on so many lives for so many centuries.

What did it mean for Andrew to call Jesus “The Messiah” … the “Anointed One?”  There were three groups of people in the Old Testament who were anointed with oil as an outward sign of God’s commissioning them for office. 

• prophets: those who spoke on God’s behalf, communicating his Word to Israel.  Elisha was anointed as successor to the prophet Elijah.
• priests: those who served God in the Temple, offering sacrifices and prayers for the people.  Aaron, brother of Moses, and his sons who were the anointed to serve as the first generations of Israel’s priests.
• kings: those who governed Israel.  Saul was the first king to be anointed to that office by the prophet Samuel.

In a word, those who were anointed were leaders, spiritual and political.  And for Andrew to call Jesus the Messiah was for him to say that Jesus was their God-designated leader … in ways that Andrew likely could not have imagined.   Jesus would be their prophet, opening up the Scriptures to them and revealing God’s love and truth.  Jesus would their priest … their link with their heavenly Father and the one who would offer up himself as a sacrifice for sin.  Jesus would be with King, one they were called to honor and obey.  He was their dream come true.

Have you experienced the goodness of having Jesus as your Messiah-leader?  Have you committed yourself to follow him?  This is a fundamental question because all of us will follow someone or something.  The American tendency is to follow our own instincts, to rely upon our own level of wisdom … that which has been inculcated in us by pop culture.  As the song says, we are raised to “do it my way.”  If that’s been your mantra, I would simply ask you the Dr. Phil question:  “How’s that working for you?”  Because my experience has been in evaluating my own life and watching others is that when we go our own way, when we think we know better than God, that things don’t work out all that well.  Jesus invites you, “Follow me.”  Jesus invites you into a life that is “really life.”  [In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. 1 Tim. 6:19 (NIV)]

The Son of God

A third title given to Jesus in this chapter came from Nathaniel.  Nathaniel was initially a skeptic regarding anyone of importance coming from Nazareth.  But then Jesus tells of having seen Nathaniel when he was not in sight … before Nathaniel was even invited to meet Jesus by Philip.  Nathaniel was stunned and blurted out, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” [John 1:49 (NIV)]  Nathaniel recognized that this wasn’t normal human insight … but divine knowledge that only God could have revealed to him.  It’s likely at this moment that Nathaniel had no clarity as to the full nature of Jesus’ divinity.  But he recognized that there was power here that wasn’t of any earthly nature … power that would be displayed repeatedly in Jesus’ ministry as he healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, and in the end, defeated the powers of sin, death, and hell through his own death and resurrection.

Jesus let Nathaniel know that many wonders were to come.  Using the glorious image of the “Son of Man” from the book of Daniel, he told Nathaniel, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that … I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” [John 1:50-51 (NIV)]  The image is drawn from Genesis … the famous story of Jacob’s ladder … and what Jesus was saying is that he would become the meeting place of heaven and earth … he would the nexus of the eternal and the temporal, of divine love and human need … he would connect God and people.

This past week, we had our second meeting of a Christian Formation Team which is looking at how we can be more effective as a church in helping people grow spiritually.  Several times in our discussion the phrase “relationship with Jesus” came up … that a crucial breakthrough for a number of us in our life of faith was to see that Christianity was not just believing about God, but relating with God … that Jesus is our link to a life with God that is personal, powerful, intimate, involving every aspect of ourselves.  Is that how you see being a Christian?  Is this church thing just about believing some of the right things and showing up in worship to fulfill a duty?  Or is church a community of people who desire deeper connections with God and each other … which we pursue together and individually as we go back to our homes and daily lives?  Is this is a religion we practice on Sunday or is it a relationship that embraces our entire life?   Let’s pray …

John Message 1

For those of you who want a first or second look at this past weekend’s message … here it is:

[show clip from the original Star Wars movie of opening prologue (episode 4)] It’s arguably the most famous movie prologue of my generation.  Many movies I’ve watched over the years have been very much forgettable.  But not so the first Star Wars installment (episode 4) which I saw as in Madison as a college student (some of you didn’t know the movie was that old!).  Star Wars had a level of special effects visuals that we’d never seen before, all tied to an epic story that has captured the American imagination for now three decades.

The scrolling text does all the things that a good story prologue should.  It orients the viewers to the basic storyline of the Rebels versus the Galactic Empire … of the underdog forces of good against the dominant forces of evil, of light versus darkness.  It foreshadows what is to come … a desperate attack against the imperial Death Star.  The very way it was filmed against the background of space, it conveys the impression of a galactic journey, of a daring adventure.  And finally, the solid text gives us the impression of gravitas … that we are being introduced to a story that matters.

Perhaps mere ancient text with no visuals or soundtrack seems to lack the excitement of Star Wars.  But I believe that the prologue to John’s Gospel is equally as artistic and possesses even greater drama.  If you haven’t done so already, make your way to John 1.  “In the beginning was the Word …” John pens … suggesting a story that is eternal and cosmic in scope.  Any Jewish readers would have immediately recognized its connection with Genesis 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” You are given the sense that John is pointing to nothing less than a cosmic re-creation made possible by the one he calls “the Word” … Jesus Christ.   If this new creation is true, if it’s real, there isn’t a story that matters more than one John will tell us of Jesus.

John’s prologue uses dramatic language letting us know that his story is also about good versus evil, of light versus darkness.  I’m not sure that at the level of personal power you could ever call Jesus an “underdog.”  And yet he was the “Nazareth nobody” (as a guy named Nathanael asked, “What good can come from there?”)  Jesus would be up against the establishment in the form of Jewish and Roman authorities … with only a small number of dedicated followers and no weapons (OK … one of the disciples, Peter, had a sword … so they had one weapon.).  No political or military power, and yet this underdog would turn world history upside down and on a more personal level, change our lives by bringing us from spiritual death to life.

Most central to today’s message, John in this prologue anticipates some of his major themes of his Gospel … light, life, grace, truth … enormous theological terms that we will attempt to unpack as we carry on through the series.  For a novice Bible reader, all of this theology can seem intimidating … somewhat like what I experienced in Zion canyon in Utah at the base of massive sandstone cliffs.  It seems like terrain left to expert climbers … but thanks to some trails blasted out of the cliffs decades ago, ordinary hikers like me can make the climb.  So all of you, with a little help from the preaching team, can make a climb to the heights of this Gospel and enjoy an amazing spiritual vista on the wonders of God’s love given in Jesus Christ.

Opening verses: “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.” [John 1:1-3 (NIV)]  Ancient Roman dramas would often begin with a hymn sung to the emperor.  The opening act of John’s drama begins with hymn-like words to Jesus, the one John will hail in the book of Revelation as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Here he calls Jesus … the Logos … most often translated as “the Word.”  This sounds like a rather weak designation to modern ears.  Talk is cheap, words seem weak.  Preachers use too many words in long, boring sermons.  Politicians seem to do a lot of talking but deliver too few results.

Why then call Jesus “the Word”?  Many scholars have noted that just about everything John says about “The Word,” ancient Jewish writers were saying about divine Wisdom.  Already in Proverbs 8, wisdom is described as a person seeking to bring divine truth to human beings.  In Jewish literature written in the centuries before Jesus, Wisdom is described as being with God from eternity; it was through Wisdom that God created and governs the world.  Though Wisdom is sometimes understood as only practical guidance for living, more broadly, Wisdom is God’s entire design for life.  Jesus is Wisdom in that he came to restore this divine design.  Why then “the Logos” instead of the Greek word for wisdom, “Sophia”?  Perhaps it’s because sophia a feminine noun and that didn’t seem appropriate for Jesus the man.  More likely, John directed by the Holy Spirit didn’t want to give the impression that Jesus was primarily a sage … a wise teacher who tried to show us the way.

So John instead calls Jesus “the Word” because he is the Way.   The Apostle Paul writes, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” [1 Cor. 1:22-24 (NIV)]  God’s design for human life is that we live in relationship with him and Jesus is the way into that relationship.  Any attempt to reduce Jesus down to being a very wise teacher misses the point of the Gospel.  Jesus just doesn’t point us to God, he is God and it is only through a relationship with him that we can come to experience God in the fullness of his love and goodness.

Jesus is God’s Word of Wisdom because he is the Way to God.  Secondly, Jesus is the Word because he is the ultimate communication of God’s mind and heart to humanity.  The author of Hebrews writes, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son …” [Hebrews 1:1-2 (NIV)]  Through Jesus, we hear God say “I love you so much that I would become human and live with you.”  Through Jesus, we hear God speak, “I am willing to sacrifice myself by dying for you on the cross.”  Through Jesus, we hear God’s invitation:  “Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”   In Jesus, God speaks loud and clear that he is not a distant deity who remains separated from his creation.  He is a God who wants a relationship with us.

Jesus, God’s Word of Wisdom, communicates God’s heart and as he does so, he creates and offers divine life.  John tells us that through Jesus, all things were made … and we know that Genesis teaches that God simply said the word and the universe came into being.  Communication, especially divine communication, has creative force … physically, relationally, spiritually.

Most of us understand this when it comes to relationships.  We ask couples who are getting married to take the Prepare questionnaire which looks at the following aspects of their relationship.  (show list on screen):
Role Relationships
Spiritual Beliefs
Realistic Expectations
Communication
Conflict Resolution
Personality Issues
Financial management
Leisure Activities
Sexual Relationship
Children and Parenting
Family and Friends

Now when I ask couples in our meeting, what they think is the greatest strength of their relationship and the area in which they need the most work, which topic do you think they name most frequently as either a strength or a weakness (or both)?  Communication!  (by the way, nobody has ever been honest enough with me to say that their sexual relationship was their strength, even when I suspected it was the basic reason the guy wanted to get married).  Most couples recognize the central importance of communication in creating, developing, deepening their relationship.  Some of this communication is by way touch and other non-verbals, but much of it is in words as couple open up their minds and hearts to one another.  You could say that their communication has the power to create (and sadly, sometimes to dismantle) their relationship.

Jesus as divine Word of Wisdom has that kind of power to create a divine-human relationship.  The word spoken at the cross, “Father, forgive them,” is also received by us as through Jesus’ death we are freed from sins’ shackles and receive forgiveness and life with God.   He invites us to receive and participate in divine life by trusting in him as our Savior.   This theme of new creation, new birth, and new life saturates John’s Gospel.  Jump ahead a little to verse 12:  “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.” [John 1:12-13 (NIV)]  Jesus speaks a spiritually creating, life-giving word in our lives so that we can become his children.

In John chapter 3, Jesus tells the Pharisee Nichodemus:  “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” [John 3:3 (NIV)]  Often times, people will use the language of “born again Christian” to describe someone had can point to a particularly dramatic experience in which he or she came to faith in Jesus.  Not all of us can have that kind of experience, but every Christian is “born again” if by that we mean that they have received the spiritual rebirth that comes from Jesus.  Whether beginning at our baptism as a infant, or as child hearing stories of Jesus, or as a young adult wrestling with whether or not to believe in God, or as an older adult finally recognizing our need for God, Jesus brings about a fundamental change in us as we receive life with him.

Finally, in dramatic terms, Jesus describes his work of new creation in John chapter 5:  “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” [John 5:24 (NIV)]   The Biblical reality is that not that we are doing pretty well on our own and then God just has to help us a little to reach him.  Jesus says that we are spiritually dead apart from him.  We need a revival … spiritual CPR … the life-giving power of Jesus in our lives.

One of our members Dori Pulse commented on this on the John in Depth website:  “I use NLT translation. Vs 13: “They are reborn–not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.” As a woman and mother, I naturally think of the birth of my two sons. In the womb, it is dark, sounds are muted, space is cramped. Physical birth releases us from that. I had a very defining moment in my spiritual birth….and I felt the same release. I was living a dark life, the sounds of God were muted, my lifestyle was cramped. A baby is born from inside out. I was reborn as well from the inside out. I then knew the true Light, the sounds of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and an incredible freedom.”

Jesus the Word of Wisdom is the Way, he is ultimate divine Communication, he is a creative force bringing new life, and he is the light that opens our eyes to God’s truth.   The prologue continues:  “In him was life, and that life 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.” [John 1:4-9 (NIV)]  The light is Jesus … the one testifying about the light … John the Baptist.  Jesus is light because in his holiness, we see more clearly our own sins and major deficiencies in loving God and others.  Jesus is light because in his grace, we see more clearly the amazing love of God for us and receive forgiveness.

Many of us who live in the city rarely experience deep darkness because there is always the ambient illumination coming from street light, night lights in our homes, etc.  But if you get away from town into the wilder areas of Wisconsin on a moonless night, you experience more of what the ancients had as an everyday experience:  “the forecast for tonight is dark.”  Have any of you ever been on a cave tour in which the lights got shut off?  The total darkness is oppressive, suffocating, fearsome.  It’s what ancients felt physically at night in a world lit only by fire … and it’s what people throughout the ages have felt spiritually given life’s confusions, uncertainties, tragedies, and prospects of death.  Darkness is scary.

We need the Word of Wisdom to enlighten us.  And this is an important theme and metaphor throughout John’s Gospel.  Generally, when things happen at night, there is also spiritual darkness, confusion, and unbelief (example … Nichodemus in John 3).  We need Jesus the Light of the World … we need his wisdom regarding God’s love and truth to shine upon our lives.

 

So much more could be said on the prologue, but let me conclude with final observation regarding Jesus, the living Word of Wisdom.  It is typical to speak about Jesus being “wise,” but I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning that Jesus was “smart.”  Then I heard philosophy professor Dallas Willard make the observation that Jesus was the smartest person who has ever lived.  For certainly if Jesus was the creator of the world (John 1:3 ), then he has fully mastered the marvels and complexities of the universe.  He knows all about black holes and dark matter and paradoxes of the quantum world.  Now to what degree he set aside this divine knowledge during his time on earth, we can’t be sure.  To what degree he limited himself to the level of intellectual attainments of his world, the Gospels don’t tell us.   What we know is that people were amazed at his knowledge and teaching (Matthew 7:28, Mark 1:22).  The Jewish leaders asked, “How did this man get such learning without having studied?” (John 7:15)

All of which suggests that if you and I want to be really smart, we need to learn of Jesus.  We can and should value his teaching far and above that which poses as “truly intellectual” in society.  Further, we don’t have to commit intellectual suicide in order to be a follower of Jesus.  We can and should engage our minds to the greatest degree in pursuing Jesus’ wisdom, knowledge of the Scriptures, and truth wherever we find it in scholarship (recognizing that all truth is God’s truth no matter the source).  Yes, we follow Jesus with our minds as well as hearts, for he is God’s Word of Wisdom.

Lamb of God

I have spent the last day up at the Heartwood Center (northwest of Trego) doing a number of things … including catching up on e-mail and doing some trail running.  But my biggest pursuit has been lots of reading on the Gospel of John … and trying to figure out what should be the focus in the first series of John messages.  In each post, I have listed a question or two and would very much like your response before I start writing the messages in a couple weeks.  Your input (especially illustrations, stories, and metaphor) will add value to my writing.

The question for this post is, what comes to your mind when we speak of Jesus being “The Lamb of God”?

Having already been introduced in the prologue, upon leaving it, we learn more of John the Baptizer.  John was under no illusion as to his identity and mission.  He was not the Messiah (the Christ) but came to prepare people for the Messiah’s coming by leading them to repent.  John is very clear on this:  “I myself did not know him (the Christ), but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”  [John 1:31 (NIV)]

Baptism itself was a well-established practice among the Jews … but it was administered only with Gentiles who wanted to embrace the Jewish faith.  John the Baptist, however, thought that both Jews and Gentiles were in need of baptism … all people are in need of spiritual change, of repentance and God’s gift of forgiveness.  Ultimately, Jews and Gentiles alike are in need of the Messiah.

In my mind, however, the most significant aspect of this section is how John speaks of Jesus when Jesus came to be baptized.  He calls Jesus “the Lamb of God.”  John testifies is that the only way he could have know this regarding Jesus was that God told him.  Indeed, John wouldn’t have come up with “the Lamb” on his own; for to refer to the Messiah as the Lamb of God would have been 180 degrees opposite from the Messianic expectations of that day.  The “lamb” was a symbol for sacrifice.  Lambs were being slaughtered every day in the Temple to atone for sin.  The Passover meal centered on the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, remembering how the blood of the lamb saved Israel from the Angel of Death. (Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. [Exodus 12:21-23 (NIV)])

To call Jesus “the Lamb of God” was thus to foreshadow his death and to explain his mission.  Jesus had, in fact, come on a mission of sacrifice … to take our sins upon himself and to give his life on the cross.  But that was not what the Jews were anticipating in their Messiah.  They were expecting revolution, deliverance, and triumph over their enemies.  They were expecting a warrior and not a lamb.  But Jesus came as one who would serve and give his life as a ransom (Matthew 20:28).

The Logos — God’s Wisdom?

Eventually I’ll make my way out of the prologue to John’s Gospel … but there are so many riches to mine here.  Before I do so, a couple questions for your response based on this and the last post.

1) What aspects of God’s character and plan has Jesus’ teaching, character, and ministry most clearly revealed to you?

2) What is your reaction to Dallas Willard’s observation that Jesus is the “smartest person who ever lived”?

In the last post, I discussed the likely connection between Jesus the Logos and the Torah … the heart of God’s revelation to Israel.  Today, I want to venture into what is even more familiar ground for John scholars and this is Logos as divine Wisdom.  Virtually everything which John says about the Logos, except for the Incarnation, Jewish literature said about divine Wisdom.  There was particular tendency to personify Wisdom as the writer of Proverbs 1 does in verses 21-22; and this was even more frequent in the intertestamental period in books like 1 Enoch, The Wisdom of Solomon, and Ben Sira.  For example, in the Wisdom of Solomon, it is the divine Logos (Wisdom) who comes down from heaven to slay the first-born Egyptians before the Exodus.

The question then arises as to why John doesn’t call Jesus the sophia, the Greek word for wisdom.  It could be that since sophia is a feminine noun, that John chose the masculine noun, logos, instead to refer to the man Jesus.  It could also be that John prefers Logos because it has a broader Old Testament connection beyond the wisdom literature (books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes).  As in the last post, the Logos can be identified with the Torah, with God’s revelation of himself and his saving work.

What then do we make of Jesus being divine Wisdom?  Well, we can certainly state that Jesus taught God’s wisdom.  In line with the practical wisdom of Old Testament wisdom literature, Jesus did not just teach abstract doctrine, but a way of life with God that went beyond the rules and regulations of the Pharisees … a  life of being obedient to God’s purposes, loving him and loving people.

But perhaps the Apostle Paul give us the greatest insight into Jesus not just teaching wisdom but being Wisdom.  He writes, “… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength … it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” [1 Cor. 1:23-25, 30 (NIV)]  For the Apostle Paul, to know real wisdom is to know God’s way into a relationship with him and that is Jesus.  Jesus through his perfect life, death, and resurrection has become our way to the Father and thus it is crucial to know Jesus as Savior if we are going to be eternally wise.

One other note regarding Jesus as God’s Wisdom.  It is typical to speak about Jesus being “wise,” but I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning that Jesus was “smart.”  Then I heard philosophy professor Dallas Willard make the observation that Jesus was the smartest person who has ever lived.  For certainly if Jesus was the creator of the world (v.3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:3 (NIV)), then he has fully mastered the marvels and complexities of the universe.  He knows all about black holes and dark matter and paradoxes of the quantum world.  Now to what degree he set aside this divine knowledge during his time on earth, we can’t be sure.  To what degree he limited himself to the level of intellectual attainments of his world, the Gospels don’t tell us.   What we know is that people were amazed at his knowledge and teaching (Matthew 7:28, Mark 1:22).  The Jewish leaders asked, “How did this man get such learning without having studied?” (John 7:15)

All of which suggests that we don’t have to commit intellectual suicide in order to be a follower of Jesus.  In fact, we can and should value his teaching far and above that which poses as “truly intellectual” in society.  Further, we can and should engage our minds to the greatest degree in pursuing Jesus’ wisdom, knowledge of the Scriptures, and truth wherever we find it in scholarship (recognizing that all truth is God’s truth no matter the source).  That’s one of the reasons why I find it exciting that there has been a resurgence of Christian perspective in academic philosophy.  If you desire a challenging read, you might want to check out Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.  This book is a powerful statement that in responding to Jesus, God’s Wisdom, we very much need to follow Jesus with our minds.

The Logos — The New Torah?

My vague memories from seminary are of a link between the Greek word logos (translated as “Word”) and Greek philosophical and religious thought.  In particular, there was connection with later Gn0stic religious thought in which the divine Logos was a connecting link between the distant Creator and humanity.   However, it’s become clear that Gnostic thought didn’t really take root until the second and third century and therefore any close Gospel of John-Gnosticism connection is unlikely.  Nevertheless, I still like the idea of Jesus the Logos being the connecting link … not with a distant Father but with a holy Father and a creation who has distanced itself from him by its sin.  As in the famous Bridge illustration of the Gospel. so Jesus is the bridge between sinful humanity and a holy God.

The prevailing thinking these days is that the Gospel of John is better understood in connection with its Jewish roots rather than any Greek influence.  In this regard, what did John mean in calling Jesus the Logos?  One way of thinking about this that is new to me is that Jesus is the new Torah.     Torah is strictly speaking the first five books of the Old Testament … the books of Moses.  It was translated as the Greek word nomos … meaning law.  But the Torah was already broader than God’s commandments.  It included the great story of God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  The Torah was God’s revelation of himself, his love, and his holiness to Israel.  And the central importance of Torah to Jewish life cannot be overstated.

So if John in calling Jesus the Logos was hinting that he was the new Torah, that Jesus takes on central importance in God’s revelation, why didn’t John just use the word nomos?   Well, it’s probably explained in 1:17 … “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  [John 1:17 (NIV)]  John wanted his reader to know without denigrating the Law of Moses, Jesus a fresh and complete revelation of God … and what Jesus was primarily communicating was not law … but grace.  Jesus had come to reveal the full truth of God’s love and plan of salvation.

It’s not hard to understand why a lot of Jews of that era who had been so steeped in Torah would have trouble believing that something or someone else could become the new focal point.  Then again, whenever the focus moves from law to grace, from human work to divine deliverance, we can have trouble grasping it.  The whole idea of God coming to save us seems too good to be true.   Yet despite all the focus on the commandments, even Israel knew that God had chosen them in his grace and that he had delivered them from slavery.  So we can fully understand the new Torah by way of the old Torah.  It’s always centered on God’s saving work and his revealing of himself.

The Prologue

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away… It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy…

Those words represent one of most famous cinematic prologues of my generation.  Most Americans over age 40 know that these words scroll down the screen of the first Star Wars movie.  The function of the prologue is to set the stage for the story and to introduce the central theme:  in this case to introduce the Rebels who are fighting against an evil Empire and to highlight their only hope for freedom:  that of finding a strategic weakness in the Empire’s Death Star.  The prologue not only informs audience but it hooks their interest, drawing them into an epic story of good and evil.

John 1:1-14 is known as the prologue for John’s Gospel.  There is some scholarly debate as to whether the prologue was an original part of John’s story or was added later.  But whether written first or last, it is clearly a powerful introduction to and summary of the epic story John will tell of God and people, of good and evil, of faith and belief.  In this prologue we see most of the key elements of the story … we see Jesus, the eternal Son of God, entering into our existence to bring life and light to darkened humanity.  This is the stuff that is even more amazing than the special effects innovations of Star Wars.  This is God at work to bring freedom!

In John’s prologue, he introduces most of the major words/concepts/metaphors that will be developed in the story.  Each of these is worth of a sermon or two:

Word — being a title for Jesus and description of his work
Life
Light
Darkness
World
Children of God
Born (spiritually)
Becoming flesh (and taking up residence among us)
Glory
Grace
Truth

I want to especially spend some time in future blogs reflecting on Jesus as “The Word” … (in Greek, “the Logos”).  But I want to leave you with a question and invite your response.  Which of the words or phrases above caught your eye as you read the prologue in the past week? I invite you to comment by listing the word/phrase and then giving a few sentence reason as to why it struck you, why it’s meaningful for you.  Your responses will serve as “fertilizer” for the November message on the Prologue.

Pastor Mark