Blakeney 26-02-03
Word 2000
In our Deanery Chapter, I have been occasionally accused of championing the use of e-mail and the Internet.
Bill Gates is famous as the founder of the software company Microsoft and Microsoft has two very well known programmes Windows and Word 2000 (RTM).
And those of you who have a computer will know how often a fault - in either programme - will cause the computer to crash.
I found this amusing story on the Internet recently.
Story: At a recent computer expo, COMDEX, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the car industry and is reputed to have said:
"If General Motors kept up with technology in the way that Microsoft has, we would all be driving in cars costing $25.00 with a fuel consumption that was 1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Gates’ comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason.
You would then have to
pull over to the side of the road,
close all of the windows,
switch off the car,
restart it and
reopen the windows
before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, when executing a manoeuvre, such as a left turn, your car would stall and refuse to restart. And you would have to reinstall the engine to get it going again.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light or a "You have performed an illegal operation."
7. The airbag system would ask you, "Are you sure?" before inflating.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously
lifted the door handle,
turned the key and
grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You’d have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
Our lectionary reading today is John 1:1-14, which is all about the Word – but St. John, is not referring to Bill Gates’ programme. He is referring to Jesus Christ, the Word of God.
St John’s Gospel opens with the following words
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning”
Why did St John call Jesus the Word of God and not simply call him Jesus.
Well, because Jesus only came into existence on this earth - as the name of the little baby born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
But the Son of God existed before he became human as the baby Jesus – whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.
So to clarify this, John has called him, in his pre-incarnate form “the Word of God”
John’s Gospel was originally written in Greek and in the Greek the word for “The Word” is LOGOS.
In other words, the opening of John’s Gospel should read: In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God…And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:1 and 14)
For the Greeks, the Logos was “the rational principle of the Universe, its meaning and its plan or purpose.”
However, I believe that St. John understands the term Logos from his Jewish perspective as, in the words of T.W.Manson,
“the creative and revealing Word of God by which the heaven and the earth were made and by whom the prophets were inspired”
John’s imagery reminds us of the opening words of Genesis 1 which reads: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…
But I also think that John used the term LOGOS or The Word to describe the Son of God, because words are how we communicate with one another and God. And Jesus was the communication of God to man
There is so much in the opening verses of John that we would be here all night trying to unpack the theology of it.
So I would like to look at five attributes of Jesus in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John.
And for ease of reference I would like to use the Greek word LOGOS as a mnemonic for these attributes. JESUS IS
L the Log-in of God
O the Origin of life
G God incarnate
O the Oracle of God
S the Saviour of the World
The first attribute of Jesus is that he is
1. THE LOG-IN OF GOD
“And the word became flesh” (Jn. 1:14)
LOG - IN is the word used when someone wants to connect to the Internet via his or her
Computer and LOG OUT is the
term used to disconnect from the Internet.
And bearing that in mind, I would like to suggest that Jesus - when he became a human – was God’s “LOG-IN” to this world.
We, by our sin, had “LOGGED OUT” from God but he “LOGGED IN” again by sending his Son to this earth to live as a man and to die in our place thereby enabling us to come through Christ to the Father
Jesus said in John 14: 6: I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me
As Christians it is easy to LOG OUT from God. Sin is the simplest way to do this. And I must say I find it a challenge to keep LOGGED IN to God, in my prayer and Bible study and indeed in my daily living.
The second attribute of Jesus is that he is
2. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
“The world was made by him…” (Jn 1:11)
Story: An atheist was sitting under a tree one day smugly thinking:
"God, I know you don’t exist but it you did you must really be stupid.
You created a huge oak tree to carry this little acorn and such a puny plant to carry a marrow.
Now, if I had been you, I’d have created the oak tree to carry the marrow and the marrow plant to carry the acorn.
As he was reflecting on this wisdom, suddenly an acorn falls and hits him on the head and he exclaimed
Thank God that wasn’t a marrow!!
In our passage this evening, St John points clearly to Jesus being the creator of the world, the origin of life.
And the very style of opening is geared to trigger our memory of the beginning of Genesis, which reads:
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light…. (Gen 1:1-3)
When we look at the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1 – when God created the heavens and the Earth we see something very interesting.
How did God create? And we find this phrase
used over and over again in the creation account: “And God said…”
For example, we read:
And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. (Gen 1:3)
And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. (Gen 1:6) And it happened.
For each day of the creation we see that the
scriptures record, “And God said…” and it
came to be.
John is clearly linking God’s creation in his Gospel to the "Logos of God" - the Word of God.
He wants us to see that there is continuity between what is observed in Genesis and what is observed in Jesus.
But John wants us to do more than think of Genesis. He wants us to ruminate on the incredibility of the third attribute: that Jesus is
3. GOD INCARNATE
“And the Word was God” (Jn 1:1)
The LOGOS, Jesus was both God and man.
One of the earliest heresies – the Arian controversy - was to hold that Jesus was only human and not divine.
St. John clearly had a different belief. Jesus, the Word was both human and divine.
The fourth attribute of Jesus that we find in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel is that Jesus is
4. THE ORACLE OF GOD
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known... (Jn 1:18)
Jesus mission was to reveal the Father to people. In his great High Priestly prayer in Jn 17, Jesus said this:
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They are yours :you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They know with certainty that I came from you and they believed you sent me (JN 17:6-8)
Jesus in Jn 14:6 made this tremendous statement:
I am the way the Truth and the Life. NO one comes to the Father except through me (JN 14:6)
What we know about God is only that which God has revealed through Christ to us.
In a multi-cultural “tolerant” society – where their only vice is to be “intolerant” of those who are “intolerant” it is a real hard to say that Jesus is the only way to God.
Story: Yesterday - as I was just about to leave my house and go to Walsingham to buy some candles for a Baptism I held earlier today, I was called on by some JW’s.
And it reminded me of something that was written by Matthew Parris - a former Tory MP and who now writes for the “Times” and who is - by his own admission - not a Christian.
He had this to say about the Christian faith:
The New Testament offers a picture of God, who does not sound at all vague.
He has sent His Son to earth. He has distinct plans for each of us personally and can communicate directly with us.
We are capable of forming a direct relationship, individually with Him, and are commanded to try. We are told that this can be done only through his Son. And we are offered the prospect of eternal life – an afterlife in happy, blissful or glorious circumstances if we live this life in a certain manner.
Friends, if I believed that, or even a tenth of that, how could I care which version of the prayer book is used? I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away all my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with desire to know more and, when I had found more, to act upon it and tell others.
Far from being puzzled that the Mormons and Adventists should knock on the door, I am unable to understand how anyone who believed that (which) is written in the Bible could choose to spend their waking hours in any other endeavour (Matthew Parris)
Quite a challenge for us all isn’t it?
The fifth and final attribute that I found in the opening Chapter of John’s Gospel of Jesus is that he is
5. THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
But as many as received Him he gave the power to become sons of God (Jn 1: 12)
Jesus came to this earth to bring us salvation. To reconcile us to God, by dying in our place.
The Law of God required that we die because of our sin, but the Love of God paid the price himself – on the Cross.
Conclusion:
The Opening verses of John’s Gospel are full of theology and reveal a lot about who Jesus is .
The Logos of God became human – that is what we mean by the incarnation.
And the key verse in all this is that ”to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name he gave the right to become Children of God” Jn 1:12
That in a nutshell is the Gospel.
In the first century AD belief was not simply “intellectual assent “ as it is today. It meant a commitment to that person in whom you believe. If you believed in Aristotle, you LIVED what he taught. If you believed in Socrates, you lived your life according to his teachings.
Do I as a believer in Jesus really LIVE as Christ would have me live? Am I committed to him as the word belief requires?
What a challenge.
