John 1:1-15
“The Incarnation is Not an Instant Breakfast Drink”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace UMC, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org
A word is far more than a mere sound.
Words can actually do things.
One poet tells how a certain man who had performed a heroic act found it impossible to tell his friends about it for a lack of words to describe it.
But there was a witness to the event whom the poet refers to as having been “afflicted with the necessary magic of words.”
He told the story, and he told it in terms that were so vivid and so moving that the poet writes: “the words became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of his hearers.”
John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word…”
When John Knox preached in the days of the Reformation in Scotland, it was said that the voice of that one man put more courage into the hearts of his hearers than 10,000 trumpets in their ears.
Words do things to people.
It’s been said that in the days of the Second World War, when Britain was short on allies and weapons, that the words of the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, as he broadcast to the nation, did things.
The Old Testament is filled with the power of words.
Once Isaac had been deceived into blessing Jacob instead of Esau, nothing he could do could take that word of blessing back again.
The word had gone out and had begun to act, and nothing could stop it.
In particular we see the word of God in action in the creation story.
At every point, we read: “And God said…”
The word of God is the creating power.
Psalm 33:6 tells us: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.”
The writer of the Book of Wisdom addresses God as the one “who has made all things by your word.”
So when John was writing his Gospel about Jesus Christ he found in his own faith and in his own experience of his own people the ordinary word which is in itself not just a mere sound but a dynamic thing, the word of God by which God created the world, the word which expresses the very idea of the action of God, the wisdom of God which was the eternal creative and illuminating power of God.
So John says, “If you want to see that word of God, if you want to see the creative power of God, if you wish to see that word which brought the world into existence and which gives light and life to everyone, look at Jesus Christ!
In him the word of God came among you.”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
It is believed that the writer of John’s Gospel lived in Ephesus and he was trying to write a Gospel that both the Jews and the Greeks could understand.
Well, the Greeks had an understanding that the world was ordered and controlled by something called the Logos, which means, the word, the reason of God.
The Logos gave purpose, plan and design to the world and even controlled events.
The ability of persons to judge between right and wrong was the Logos living in them.
It was believed that “all things happen according to the Logos.”
The Logos was nothing less than the mind of God controlling the world and everything in it.
So John came to the Greeks and basically said, “For centuries you have been thinking and writing and dreaming about he Logos, the power which made the world, the power which keeps order in the world, the power by which we all think and reason and know, the power by which we come into contact with God.
Jesus is that Logos come down to earth.
‘The Word’, said John, ‘became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’”
In Jesus Christ this creating, illuminating, controlling, sustaining mind of God has come to earth.
He came to tell us that we no longer need to guess and grope; all we have to do is to look at Jesus and we will see God!!!
That is the meaning of the word: Incarnation!
It’s the Christmas story and it’s powerful.
It’s much bigger than arguing with city governments about manger scenes in public squares.
It’s way beyond bumper stickers about keeping the Christ in Christmas.
It’s much, much bigger than all that!!!
It is about GOD!
And God revealing God’s Self…not just at Christmas time but for all time!!!
It’s a love story, and the greatest one at that!
And you and I, and the rest of creation is a part of that love story.
The Incarnation is interactive!!!
We are all called to become involved.
John tells us that there was a man named John the Baptist who came to witness and testify about the Word of God.
And this is one of the most important ways we are to interact with the Incarnation.
We are to witness to “the true light that gives light to every” person.
For as we are told, “In him was life, and that life was the light of [people].
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
Now there are three things about darkness in the Gospel of John.
One is that darkness is hostile to the light.
So John is saying: “Into this world there comes Jesus, the light of the world; there is a darkness which seeks to eliminate Jesus, to banish Jesus from life, to extinguish Him.
But there is a power in Jesus that is undefeatable.
The darkness can hate Jesus, but the darkness can never get rid of Him.”
The darkness also stands for the natural sphere of all those who hate the good.
And there are certain passages where darkness seems to stand for ignorance, especially for that willful ignorance which refuses the light of Jesus Christ.
“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
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.”
To be born of God is to begin that slow and lifelong transition from ignorance to understanding.
And it also means to become a witness concerning the light…
…for light is never meant to be hidden!
What is Grace United Methodist Church doing to witness to the light of Jesus Christ?
How are we making known to the world that the Incarnation has occurred?
Does our community see the Incarnation living in us?
Or are we just another lukewarm church…
…nothing too exciting…
…nothing really radical going on…
…just the same old, same old that’s on every corner of this town?
Paul did an amazing thing with this concept of the Incarnation…
…and it should humble us to the dust…
…cause us to sit up and take notice…
…get our hearts beating at a breakneck speed, and put some urgency into what goes on at 9833 Hixson Pike in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee.
Paul said that the Church of Jesus Christ is Christ’s Body on this earth and that every one of us are an important and vital member of that Body.
We all have our functions which we are to perform in order for Body to do what it was designed to do--what it is called to do.
If some of us, or all of us are slacking…
…the Incarnation of Jesus isn’t able to do much within the community we are planted.
If we are at one another’s throats, we are a Body which is on the verge of having a stroke or a fatal heart attack.
If we are lax in our participation, then we have a Body that is lazy…a couch potato Incarnation, shall we say.
If we have a few members who are working hard, but a number who are not—we are a disabled Body.
And if we are not on the same page…well, we are an extremely ill Body capable of accomplishing very little.
But if we band together, with the mission of making followers of Jesus Christ in order to change the world…
…and we really mean it…
…we are an undefeatable, inextinguishable, life transforming organism within a community of the Bible Belt which has been coined as being “highly churched,” but “highly unconverted” at the same time.
What do you want us to be?
What is your function in the Body of Christ?
What is your passion?
What drives you and motivates you?
What gets your juices flowing?
Whatever that is, that is your function in the Body of Christ.
You are called by God to put your passions and talents to work within the Incarnation of God.
If your passion is teaching—teach a Sunday school class or a Bible study group…lead persons to the light using your passion.
If your passion is found in service to others, work on setting up a coffee house at this church or a soup kitchen or a job training center.
If your passion is loving people…encourage your fellow members with love and cards.
Let other members of this Body know when they have been missed, and encourage others to start living into their God-given functions.
If your passion is sales, invite your friends and neighbors to come meet Christ at Grace United Methodist Church.
Tell them what this Incarnation of Christ means to you.
Let the un-churched know that God is alive and well…and that there is a community of faith which is seeking to witness to that fact in word, deed, and action.
We come to know the Incarnate Christ when we begin to do what we are called to do within Christ’s body.
We come to know God when we begin to love people with Jesus’ love.
We move out of the darkness of ignorance and into the freedom of the light as we love and accept the marginalized, the outcaste, the discriminated against, those who have been hurt by the church, the agnostic, the atheist and the supposedly perfect, stable and happy alike as people whom God loves more than words can explain.
We begin to get radical when we are not afraid to take off our masks, admit our flaws and messiness and live life—real life to the full!
A tee-shirt in a Hot Topic Store proclaims: “It’s In to be Out.”
And that could never be more true in the Body of Christ.
We are not called to play church…
…we are called to BE CHURCH!!!
And that means we are called to BE INCARNATIONAL.
We are to be the hands and feet of Christ in a lost and broken world.
Imagine the possibilities!
They are endless.
Look around you.
Look at yourself!
You are a part of the greatest story ever told!
You are a part of Christmas.
You are a part of God’s Incarnation.
Are you going to let the world know it or not?
