This sermon was delivered to St Oswald’s, Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 2nd January 2010; St Oswald’s is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
The readings for today are:
Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Psalm 147 or 147:13-21 Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7 John 1:1-18
Our sermon text for today comes from the Gospel of John Chapter 1 verses 1 to 18. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known”.
“Please join me in a short prayer from Psalms 19:14, and In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, open our hearts to your word, - a word that passes faithfully from our hearts to life eternal. Amen
Introduction
Our first reading this morning was from the book of Jeremiah, where the text had few direct links with the other readings today, however it is appropriate because it expresses the mood and spirit of the celebration of Christmas.
For example, the news of Christ's birth is an announcement of salvation where the Lord saved, ransomed and consoled a people from sorrow unto joy. It is, of course, a prophetic announcement concerning the return of exiles to the Promised Land.
I particularly like the last verses which say: “Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow”.
That is a very positive and pleasant prophecy where the passage uses the metaphor of redeeming someone, who has been left in pledge for a debt, or from slavery.
To move on, our Gospel message this morning is about Jesus being the light of the world, but before we explore that topic we need to start at the beginning in John chapter 1 verse 1 where John views the creation differently from the other gospel writers.
Matthew, Mark and Luke have had their turn at telling the Christmas story; today it is John’s turn where finally he gets the chance to tell the Christmas story in his way.
The problem with John however is, well, John doesn’t just tell stories, John gives speeches. John does not preach a three point sermon; John preaches a fifty-three-point sermon. John never does anything small as John is the most psychological of all four gospel writers.
John, quite simply, likes to write things large. Mark goes back to Isaiah and Malachi to begin his gospel. Matthew goes back to Abraham. Luke not to be outdone goes all the way back to Adam. But John is in a class by himself. When he tells the story of how Jesus came into the world, he goes back to the dawn of time itself.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Do you see what I mean? In John, Jesus doesn't just come into the world because of his two parents, Mary and Joseph. (or more accurately Mary and the Holy Spirit); and Jesus to John just isn't the Messiah that Israel has been longing for, and for which the prophets held out hope. No, Jesus to John is the logos, the Word of God Himself. He is that very part of God that speaks; that very part of God that makes Himself heard.
St John’s gospel starts with: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Similarly; that is how the Bible starts in the Book of Genesis: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…’ It’s not a coincidence. John meant to write this.
John wants us to see the strong connection between the first beginning, which is the creation of the world, and the new beginning that has come into being in Christ Jesus. The first man in Genesis is called Adam with all his imperfections, the first man in God is called Jesus Christ and He is often referred to as the “second Adam” in all his perfections.
The second Adam “coined by Paul” is our saviour, who has come to redeem us from a life of sin and death; to be a new creation in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
Now, our New Testament reading this morning from the book of Ephesians directly agrees with this gospel message in the respect that the story of Christ began before the world was created.
Ephesians 1:3 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.”
The story of our salvation begins before the world began also. This verse not only says that God chose Jesus before the foundation of the world, but that he had us in mind at that time as well; and that Jesus would be created to save us from ourselves and from a life of sin and death.
Let us move back to John, verse 4: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”.
This is my message this morning, where John regularly uses this metaphor of light and darkness: with the light being pure and from God, and the darkness refers to sin and death; from “you know who”, Satan. A light therefore switched on expels the darkness, just as the appearance of Jesus expels all sin and death.
Now to me this all sounds good and simple, but in reality it is anything but. Such a light to us is basically comfort and joy, but I can assure you, that such a light too many is threatening and dangerous. In fact, it was so dangerous that the forces of darkness did everything they could to overcome this light of God, including the crucifixion of Jesus himself.
This is what John is referring to in his church, in the background, a struggle, where many of John's parishioners would not accept Jesus as the Messiah; and where others were rejected because they accepted Jesus. Throughout John we not only hear about Jesus being persecuted by his own people, but how His followers were equally mistreated.
What we have in such stories is therefore a lens through which we can view the struggle that went on in the emerging church; a time in which followers of Jesus were experiencing a severe estrangement from their religious and cultural roots.
It is difficult to determine how this happened, but if you read John carefully, you will find clues dropped here and there about why people found Jesus so threatening. In the end, John does not explain why. All he says is “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him”.
It is left to us to explain why the self-professed children of light were closed to the light of God's truth when it shone. How do we answer such a question without becoming guilty of the very same kind of self-righteousness that Jesus' opponents embodied?
The only way that makes sense to me is 'psychological', that is to say, by looking deep into that place called the 'soul', that is the deepest place inside you and me.
What is it that happened when the light that was Jesus, came into the world, and that is still happening today whenever the light that is Christ begins to shine on the unrighteous?
Alan Culpepper from his book, the Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel says: “Light is not only the revelation of the logos; it reveals the nature of all who come in contact with it, and the judgment upon each person is determined by his or her response to it. Light shines in darkness. … It reveals. … It also exposes. …
This then makes many people very uncomfortable. The way I think it works is this. Light comes into the world and it's as if everyone and everything is seen in a new but penetrating unflattering way. Basically they are seeing themselves as they really are, and they do not like it.
Suddenly they are connected with each other, warts and all, in the attempt to purify; but purification involves pain, normally emotion pain and a direct threat to the ego. The source of divine light therefore comes to make people more like Christ and to grow in connectedness; by losing and destroying all worldly greed and selfishness; and every other horrible sin. This is a process that make many people run, and I mean run.
When we trust Jesus, we risk, moving toward the light, letting it draw us out from the darkness of the ego and fear; into the warmth of love and of God. It is as if we know that the light is where we belong; that is why we journey toward it.
But there are those of us, (and many more than you may think), who love darkness more than we love the light. The problem is that they have begun to identify with their own darkness, to love their own evil more than their own good.
The light that shines on them, (from another human being in Christ say), appears harsh and glaring. It exposes their mistakes and inadequacies. In terror they flee from it, (although they will never tell you this), and scheme to keep themselves covered and hidden. They even, eventually, deep down hide from their own self goodness.
John Shea, from his book Jesus: Stories for Spiritual Consciousness says: “Lying to themselves and to others is the only strategy they can envision. They cling to their own darkness out of fear and in this perverted sense they love it as it allows them not to be seen.
Eventually they realize the only way to secure the darkness is to kill the advancing light. They think this will protect them, but it always proves to be their undoing”.
This is how judgment works. It is not about going before a Judge who will weigh our good deeds and bad. It is about the choice we make every single day, about whether or not to step into the light or retreat into the darkness, (and hide from the truth). John 3:19 says “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world and human beings loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil”.
That was John's Christmas message to his own church, a people who were tempted to despair from this awful struggle going on in their own church and their own hearts.
It is the message that there is something about this light that has come that will not be stopped, even by the human refusal to accept it.
The creative power of God, the eternal Word became part of the creation. The eternal Word became one with us, to live among us, to be one of us. We call him ‘Jesus’.
Jesus is the eternal Word, meaning the true story of God. When God speaks, He says Jesus is the truth listen to Him. Jesus therefore put ‘flesh’ onto the eternal Word of God.
To finish off John 14 verse 6 says that “Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life; and that No one comes to the Father except through Him”.
It is only therefore through Jesus Christ, that we can have a meaningful relationship with God, so let us embrace Him and all that he has achieved.
Amen
Let us Pray:
Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that He is your word and that we openly welcome Him.
Father let us be strengthened by the knowledge that we do our best to live in your light, and that we are proud to be children of your light, and not of the darkness.
Father we therefore need to see how powerful that light of yours is: so we ask therefore for a revelation of how strong your light in us really is, and how this light frightens so many people. We need this revelation to strengthen us, as those in the darkness like to keep us under there control.
Father we are on this earth to do your will, and not the will of those in the dark; so we ask you this day to free us from those who would hold us back.
We ask this in the almighty name of Jesus,
Amen.
