JESUS CHRIST:THE SOUND OF A NEW STORY
INTRO: THE WRONG STORY
Before we look more carefully into John’s Gospel I want to speak with you about an event that happened to the stepson of a friend over the holidays. Derrick was thirteen years old and was spending the night at the home of a friend the night after Christmas. Apparently there were several guys there that were approximately that age. After watching some movies, the boy who was hosting the group broke into his grandfather’s gun cabinet with a stolen key and took out a 357 magnum handgun and loaded it. He pointed the weapon at one of the other boys and pulled the trigger, he turned to a second boy and fired the weapon again. Fortunately, there was not a bullet in the chamber the first two times. The boy then pointed the gun at Darren* and after making some threats pulled the trigger. This time the gun went off and Darren’s young life was tragically snuffed out.
Now after the hundreth such story we have gotten used to asking how such a senseless even could ever happen. We look to blame the parents, the gun manufacturers, the entertainment industry, the schools, peer pressure, and the kids themselves, but few answers really present themselves. What would cause an ordinary teenage boy with his whole life ahead of him to demonstrate such wanton disregard for the sanctity of human life?
The answer is that he is living out the wrong story.
* Not his real name
I. WHERE THE WORLD LOST ITS STORY
A. All of us live life in light of a story. Think for a minute if I ask you who you are you will likely tell me your name. If I press for details however, you will begin to tell me your life story. If I dig even farther you will tell me the story of your family origins, how your family came to be in the United States, you might go into the history of our country. Broaden that far enough and you can see that our very self-understanding is expressed by telling the story of the world and where we fit within it.
As you are probably aware, however, there are different versions of that world story.
B. The boy that shot Derrick was living out the implications of a God forsaken story. From the day that Adam rebelled against God in the garden, and sin entered the world we humans have crafted a story where the self is the center of the narrative. Remember the temptation of the serpent – “What’s in it for you, Adam?”
C. Our culture has picked up on that story and has sold us on a version of the world that is completely devoid of the active, personal presence of God. We have been told our whole life that the goal of living is to have more money, more toys, more power than anyone else. Live fast, get as much as you can. Other people are the means to that end, mere objects to be manipulated for my benefit. Is it any wonder that violence and murder have become such a part of the stories we tell.
D. Often when my father was correcting me as a child he would say that the whole world did not revolve around me, but that is the new story. This story is all about me and my desires. Inexplicable as it may seem, this is story of the world that sinful human beings have chosen to create, to live in, and to understand themselves by.
This is the world that John’s Gospel addresses. . .
I. IN THE BEGINNING WAS A GOD WHO SPEAKS AND SHOWS HIMSELF
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
A. Against this story, John enters with an alternative story. We can see that this story is instantly different because it is set to music. The beginning of John’s Gospel is poetry not prose. One must sing and exult and resound with joy in worship because this is not the story of a God forsaken world. It is the story of a world where God is present and speaks.
B. In the beginning... John’s is telling recalling us to us the story of the world (Gen. 1:1). The story of the God-forsaken world must be completely re-written.
C. Who is the center to this story? We see very quickly that this lyrical story is about a person whom John calls the “Word” who perfectly reveals God and tells of what God is like. But who is this Word? And why would John use such a cryptic title to describe this person?
D. The title Word tells us something about the nature of God namely that he is by his very nature self-communicating. At the very beginning we are confronted with the story of a God who is there and who is not silent. He speaks, and he reveals himself personally. This person who John calls the “Word” of God is the embodied self-communication of God
II. HISTORY. . .
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
A. This person is central to story of the world because it was through him that the world came into being. Through him all things were made. Before the world began he was with God and was God and the world came into being through him.
B. In him was life and that life was the light of men. The payoff for us is that we are not our own. We have come into being through him. We have been created at his good pleasure. We exist for him and not for ourselves. John removes us from the center of our own stories as certainly as he removes us from the center of the world’s story.
. . .the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
C. And yet in being de-centered, this person, God’s Word opens to us the intimacy with God that he himself enjoys. In becoming less we are given more than we ever could have hoped.
III. THE WORD BECAME FLESH
14 The Word 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.
16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
A. So what keeps this from becoming simply a new spin on the world – an alternative explanation of the world that is simply one among many? What is to keep this from becoming a mere fairy tale that we tell our children so that they will be good? Only a fool could look at a world of 5+ billion people, most of whom are not Christians (and thus do not assent to the story) and not wonder about that. If you are here this morning and you are a little skeptical – maybe offended by the notion that you are not the central figure in your own story. Maybe you are here investigating. You want something real and spiritual but you haven’t bought into all of this yet.
B. Word becomes flesh - God dwells with us. Not a fictional reworking of the world, but flesh-and-blood history. John’s lyrical story comes to its climax when the Word takes on human flesh and is revealed to the world as Jesus of Nazareth — the one who was born to poor parents in Bethlehem, crucified in history under a Roman procurator named Pontius Pilate, and who suffered, who died, and who was resurrected. In his life and death and resurrection we see the embodied self-communication of God. Jesus Christ is the story. It is all about him!
C. As human beings we are entitled to ask who is God and what is God like. God answers are searching question with the story of Jesus.
IV. WITNESSES TO HISTORY
6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’"
A. Who are we and why are we here at Peace Church. Like John, we bear witness to the story and to the power of that story as we live it out in our lives. Through sin the world lost its story and substituted a false and God-forsaken story. We are heralds, bards that sing the song of the new story – a God-infused world.
B. Notice how John is de-centralized. He knew that it was not all about him. He found his story in the story of Jesus Christ. John bore witness to him and so must we.
© 2001, Rev. Michael J. Pahls
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