Life Experience Series

John 1:1-18 “Life Experiences”

INTRODUCTION

Humans are social beings. We were created for relationships—relationships with each other and a relationship with our God. Relationships don’t just happen, though. They take a lot of work and even though we may work hard at nurturing our relationship many times they become bruised or broken.

Relationships are precious to us. But, how far do you go to save a broken or bruised relationship? For most of us, there comes a point when we simply give up. It may be at a time when we are too hurt by the other person to be able to forgive him or her. The other person may ignore our attempts to restore the relationship and indicate that they don’t care. There are those times when we can only back away and wait, or when we sadly turn our backs and walk away.

The absolutely great news of today’s gospel text is that God never gives up on relationships. We may turn our back on God, but God never turns his back on us. We may reject God, but God never rejects us. We may never give God a thought, but God never stops thinking about us, and moving in our lives that he may draw us back to him.

CREATED FOR RELATIONSHIP

In this prologue, the gospel writer boldly proclaims that Jesus (the logos) was God, was with God, and through him the world was created. God is the God of all creation from the stars to you and me.

This God of all creation came to into the world (vs. 10) yet though the world was created by him, it did not know him. The world was blind to the relationship that God was seeking to create.

In verse 11 the gospel writer states that Jesus came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. We had been created for a relationship with God. We were God’s people, yet when Jesus came and dwelt among us we did not know him nor did we accept him. Jesus did not leave us, however. Jesus stayed and continued to attempt to establish a relationship with us and to build the relationship.

God’s steadfast love for us is displayed by God’s unwillingness to let us go and to leave us alone.

THE MINISTRY OF THE INCARNATION

Jesus shed his Godliness and took on our form. He became human; he became one of us.

One of the reasons that Jesus did this was so he could understand us. Jesus, as the saying goes, “Walked a mile in our moccasins.” He did this so that he might not only be a God of forgiveness, but also one of sympathy, empathy, and compassion.

Jesus also came and dwelt among us so that we might see God for who God truly is. People had developed a perverted perspective on God. They saw God as only a God of judgment. God was a God who punished. Jesus came that we might see that:

• God was a God of love. As John writes in his third chapter, “For God so loved THE WORLD.

• God was a God of grace, who showered our lives with blessings.

• God was a God of acceptance; of inclusion rather than exclusion. No one was beyond God’s love.

• God is a God who hates injustice—who stands against the rich and the powerful when they seek to perpetuate injustice.

WE’RE FAMILY

Jesus came to bring us back into the family of God. We had wandered and we had run away, so Jesus came to bring us back home. The gospel writer proclaims, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

Martin Luther writes in his small catechism that because we call God our father, and God calls us his children that we are able to approach God boldly, like a child approaches his or her parents.

As our parent, God provides for us as any loving parents do for their children.

As our parent, God protects us from evil and from all that would pull us away from him.

CONCLUSION

Walking in a relationship with him, God becomes our light and life. God is what we desperately need. God moves in our lives so that we may experience life in its fullness. This abundant life can only be lived as we walk each day in a relationship with God.

Amen