The Logos Revealed Series

The Logos Revealed

Love Never Dies, prt. 3

Wildwind Community Church

David Flowers

April 18, 2010

St. Francis of Assisi once spent a whole night in a cave praying this prayer: “Who are you, and who am I? Who are you, and who am I? Who are you, and who am I?”

The problem with us today is that we think we already know and so we are not really asking. We say, “Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, born of a virgin, the son of God,” yadda, yadda, yadda, lapsing into our religious and theological talk. But who among us knows God? Who among us can grasp him, understand him, put him in a box, label him and put him on the shelf? That is our sin. That is where we have missed the mark. We think our greatest sins have to do with our actions, but they don’t. Our greatest sin is not that we do wrong, it is that we think we know when we do not. Make a few wrong assumptions about another person in your life and you’ll act wrongly towards them in all kinds of ways. Get your assumptions right – get to know that person – find out who they are – and you will automatically make corrections and begin to act rightly.

“God who are you, and who am I? Who are you, and who am I?” We absolutely must get the “who” right. That’s why we spent 45 minutes talking last week about the cosmic Christ – about the Logos.

In verse 14 of chapter 1 we read, “The Word (Logos) became flesh and dwelled among us.” God became man. And in that moment – in that instant – God saved human history. In that instant, God affirmed that human life is good. That physicality is good, that sexuality is good, that emotionality is good, that the earth and the whole creation are good, that being male and female are good – that human flesh can be the place of holiness, that divinity and humanity can and do co-exist. Right in that moment of Jesus’ birth. In our tradition we focus on the death of Jesus as being the thing that saved us. We believe our salvation came from the last three hours of his life. But actually we were saved when Jesus was born. Jesus went to the cross to show us the path we will each have to walk. We will each have to die to ourselves. We will each have to put ourselves to death in a thousand ways. We will each have to walk the road Jesus walked from life to crucifixion and then on to resurrection! That is what the death of Christ is about, my friends! But we’ll deal more with that later. For now I’d like us to look at chapter 2 of the Gospel of John.

Chapter 2 is interesting because there are only two events that occur. First is that Jesus does his first miracle by turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Second is that Jesus overturns the tables and drives out the moneychangers in the temple. That’s chapter two. Pretty simple. But what I want to focus on is the way these events that are about Jesus reveal to us his identity as the Logos – the Christ – the ever-existing Word of God.

Let’s look at the chapter.

John 2:1-25 (NIV)

1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there,

2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

3 When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."

4 "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come."

5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

7 Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim.

8 Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." They did so,

9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside

10 and said, "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."

11 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.