A sermon based upon John 1: 1-18
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Second Sunday of Christmas, Jan. 2, 2011
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
It’s good to be back with you after my foot surgery. The doctor says I’m making good progress and all is healing well. Of course, I’m somewhat limited. Next week I get to start putting weight down and the cast comes off is three weeks, then I’ll be out in a walking boot. I’m excited about that.
Speaking of where I’ve been, let’s think about where we are today. This is the first Sunday of the New year, 2011. But even more than that, even though some of you have already taken down your Christmas tree, on the church calendar this is considered the 2nd Sunday of Christmas. So, even though it’s New Years, it’s really still Christmas. Remember that song, the 12 days of Christmas? Christmas is supposed to begin Dec. 25th and then end on January 5th. That’s the 12 days of Christmas we sing about, and it’s the way the religious calendar is set up. But of course, some of you have been christmassing too long already, and you are ready to get finished with it.
I’m not knocking when or how you have celebrated Christmas; the main thing is to celebrate. But I do want to for us to pause for a moment today and make sure we got the main message we’re suppose to get. We all know that Christmas is not centrally about a certain season of the year. We also know that Christmas is not about eating too much at holiday parties, though we’ve probably done that. We also know that Christmas is more than the decorations, the receiving gift or drinking eggnog. Again, I’m not criticizing any of these fun things, but I still want us to reflect once more on what Christmas really means at the very heart. The church calendar won’t let us move on without looking at Christmas through the lens of John’s gospel.
Amazingly, when you look at Christmas through John, we also don’t get most of the so called sentimental “religious stuff” most of us associate with Christmas. We not only don’t get the commercialism, we also don’t get Christmas story of Luke or Matthew. In John’s gospel, we get Jesus, but we don’t get Jesus a manager with the Shepherds and the angels. We also don’t get the Wise men following the star. Almost none of those wonderful images we normally associate with Christmas are not found here in John. Jesus is never a “baby” in John’s retelling of the gospel story.
I don’t know how many of you had time to watch the Sing Off on NBC. It was wonderful entertainment as talented amateur acapella voices competed for the top singing prize. The competition was exciting. The music was compelling. And of all things, a Christian group from Alabama won top prize. They were incredible. One thing I remember in the competition is when the judges and major competitors to share what was their favorite thing about Christmas. One of the judges, Nicole Schezinger shared that her favorite thing about Christmas was the “baby” Jesus. I guess that’s how you speak of Jesus when you were once one of the pussycat dolls. Again, I’m not criticizing Nicole at all, because I think she was attempting to speak about her faith in a way that would not been overtly religious. But her comment reminds me of the deeper truth John is trying to tell us. The heart of Christmas takes us beyond the baby. What John wants us to see at Christmas is not a “manager” but a tent.
John’s wants us to know Jesus is the one who was born, not just to be a baby, but to grow into manhood and even more than this to be the “the word, (that) became flesh and dwelt among us, (so that) we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.”
In this part of the Christmas story we get to what Christian scholars call one of greatest claims of the gospel. This baby that was born is God’s true voice, or as John puts it, “the word putting on flesh.” Officially, this is called the message of Incarnation. This is the claim that in Jesus, God put’s on a human face and lived among us in this world. The Incarnation is the truth of Christian message at the very core. It is the truth that Jewish leaders could not stomach, and still struggle with, at least its purest form. For the Jew, the Incarnation contradicts what they believe in the Shema prayer: “Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God is One.” Thus, for the Jew, they see no way God could be 3 in one, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To them, God can’t have a human face. This is also a truth that Muslims cannot tolerate either. They can see Jesus as a miracle working prophet, but not as God with a human face because they cry daily in their daily prayer: "La elaha ella allah" which means: “There is no God, but Allah.” Differing from Jews and Muslims, Hindu’s have no problem calling Jesus God in the flesh, because they also have 6 million other gods who have done the same thing. It’s just no big deal. But finally, in Buddhism, the whole idea God becoming flesh is not necessary at all. The point in their religious message is not for God to become flesh or human, but for you in your flesh to become nothing. This “becoming nothing” is, according to Buddha is enlightenment, as close to God as anyone can get.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing other major religions. Each of them can reflect a sincere search for God and have some good religious points to make. For example, in Buddhism, to learn to suffer and to deny yourself is very close to Jesus call to “deny yourself and take up the cross and to follow Jesus. In their best humanized forms, most all major world religious have more in common with Christians that they have differences and they all call for living ethically, becoming your best self, and respecting God, yourself and others. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what I want you to see today is how John’s message of Christmas makes Christianity different from any other religion. This claim of “incarnation” is radical, unique, and even astounding, just as it is offensive and scandalous. It is also the most brilliant religious challenge ever given to humanity in the history of the world.
Before we continue with what John says in the opening of his gospel, there is one passage of Scripture I want us to consider, which was also from John; 1 John 4: 2, which reads: 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.
(1Jo 4:2-3 NRS). That’s pretty strong language. When those words were written, there was a certain religious teaching which actually denied that Jesus was a real human being. This is why John wanted his first readers to know, right from the beginning, that you can’t have true Christianity without “confessing” that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”. This is why in John’s gospel he tells us how sensual and “fleshy” God is. God washes dirty feet, smells extravagant perfume, makes lots of wine, had his guts twisted in anger, raised a dead, putrid and stinking Lazarus, asked a friend to put his hand in his side and God ate grilled fish on the seashore. This is the earthly, sensual, fleshly Jesus of John who is “God in the flesh”. John is adamant Incarnation. If you are really Christian, you will be too. John says you can’t even be called Christian without believing in God this way. And since it is this important, we need to review this great truth every year.
JESUS IS GOD WITH A HUMAN FACE
Well, to make this simple, listen again to what John says: “the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The best commentary on this is found In another place; where John is not writing deep theology but explains in a letter to his congregation. Listen to these words from opening of John 1: We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- 2 THIS LIFE WAS REVEALED, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to YOU THE ETERNAL LIFE THAT WAS WITH THE FATHER AND WAS REVEALED TO US--
3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly OUR FELLOWSHIP IS WITH THE FATHER AND WITH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST.
4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that GOD IS LIGHT AND IN HIM THERE IS NO DARKNESS at all. (1Jo 1:1-5 NRS)
One line at the end of verse 2 is worth repeating over and over as to what Incarnation means: “the eternal life that was with the Father was revealed to us….” But how do get behind these words? It’s not that hard. Let me ask you: How do you find your way through life? How do you come to grips with both living and dying? How do you decide what is right and what is wrong? How do you know what matters most in life? The truth is, unless God has spoken to us uniquely and surely in Jesus, we are all in the dark. Is there a light in Islam? We all know the darkness that hovers around the extremes of that religion which murders infidels. Is there a light in Buddha? In order to seek enlightenment he abandoned his wife and new born child? Does that sound like the purest of a person? I think Buddha teaches many good things, but even as a person seeking enlightenment, he was nowhere close to Jesus.
Jesus is one of a kind. He was God’s very own voice. But of course, even though Jesus is God’s voice, Christianity that follows and proclaims Jesus is not perfect and sometimes we fail miserably. There have been all kinds of misrepresentations of Christianity through history and in the present, which has strayed away from the light. But what John wants us to know is that in him, in Jesus, in the true understanding of the Christian message, we have seen the light, the truth, and we can encounter the very word we all need for living and dying. In Jesus, we hear what God wants us to hear, we see what God wants us to see, and we come to know what God wants us to know. In Jesus, we meet God, his presence, his personality, and his essence.
I know in this modern and post modern world, many people struggle with the teaching of any kind of religion. It’s call secularization. Since the mid-1700’s many learned and educated people haved claimed that we can only know what we can.see. Since God is invisible, they say, and since the world and life is not always orderly and fair, and so much appears to happen by accident or for no reason, then God does not exist. Interestingly, even some Christians have fallen into this “secular” trap, only living by what they want or what they can see too. In other words, we may say we believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, but we don’t live like we believe or like it matters.
Here is something I want to challenge you with for the New Year: Does your life really show that you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh? Does it make a real difference in how you believe and how you understand what is most important in life? I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Anthony Flew. He was once one of the most popular Atheists in the world. A brilliant and learned scholar, he once wrote a book denying the existence of God and denying the reality of the resurrection. Interestingly, Flew is now a believing Christian and do you know what changed his mind? To explain it simply, it was in own mind that changed his mind. He continued to search for the truth until one day he realized that his ability to seek the truth was, in fact, the very image of God in him. He realized that if there was no God, there would be no truth, no interest, no search or care for truth, and finally, he would not even being denying God, in the first place. He realized that is own energy to try to deny God was proof that there is much too much “mind” in the world, or too much complexity in the world, for there not to be a great mind behind it. Everything there is shouts the glory and mind of God. It’s the only way life can be logically explained. If we humans have a mind and can think outside of ourselves, then, Flew realized, there must be a greater mind outside us, it’s as simple as that. Isn’t it amazing how “smart” some smart people can become? In the end, it was his own “honest” logic and his own “sincere” seeking the truth, which finally brought him into the light. Now, Dr. Flew is sharing that news with the world.
Of course, to think about God in logical, philosophical terms doesn’t mean much to those of us who have believed in God all along. But here is the challenge for us. We say we believe in God. We say we believe in Jesus. We say we believe that God has spoken the truth in the flesh. But now comes the real test of faith: do we live what we believe? Does the word become flesh in us? Does the word become flesh in who we are as people and as a church? That is where the “spirit” still must get into the“flesh”, we could say.
JESUS AS THE FACE OF TRUE HUMANITY
John says, “the eternal life that was with the Father was revealed to us….” Now we come to what is much more than just God talk religion or words. True Christianity reminds us, more than anything else, that if our faith, our religion and our beliefs does not impact our lives, in some very real ways, then they mean nothing. This is something else John was very specific about. In his letter, whicht puts the Incarnation in some very understandable language, John also says plainly: “20 Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1Jo 4:20-21 NRS).
John’s logic is the most wonderful logic in the world. It’s what makes Christianity the answer of faith for the world. Religion, of any kind, even the best kind, and even the right kind, is no good unless those who say they believe, end up loving those we do see and live with in this world. Because Jesus’ life was so full of compassion and love, and because his number one commandment was “love”, we can rest sure that we have not only the right religion, but the right way of living out our faith in life. True faith can only be “true” when it is lived, and we don’t live our faith unless we love God by showing our love to each other. This means true religion, isn’t true unless it’s also loving. When religion loves, it is true religion, even if it some other failures or flaws in it. And this is what a Christian is suppose to be about. The love of God is supposed to show up in us, in our life, our service and our sacrifice, just like it showed up in Jesus’ life, service, and sacrifice. Jesus shows us the face of God and the face of Love.
How can you know this to be true? Just try it. Some of you know what you feel when you have shown love and compassion to someone less fortunate this Christmas. Maybe you helped an elderly person put up a Christmas tree, you took a meal to someone, or you sang Christmas carols, or you simply paid a visit or made a phone call. That is where it starts, but not where it ends. This sharing of hope, of grace, of love and help to those in need and to each other is what the “word becoming flesh” means. Our religion must “put on flesh” and it must “get real” addressing real issues and touching the lives and needs of real people or our faith is just a mirage. But when we do “God” things in very “human”, “ordinary, and compassionate” ways, we are being Christian and we are practicing the heart of Christmas. And guess what? Being Christian is how Christmas can happen anytime and all year long. When God’s becomes flesh in us through loving deeds, as He did in Jesus; God becomes flesh and this is true religion.
Think about it this way with this question: How close is God to us in this world? How do we know God is still “Emmanuel, God with us?” Well, the truth is God is as close as you want him to be when you “see” “who” God sees, when you “care” like God cares, and when you “love” like God loves. When the people of God live out the image of God in our own flesh, and when we live the “humanity” we see in Jesus, then God is as close to us as we are in living like him.
JESUS AS OUR ONLY TRUE HOPE
But there’s one more thing we need to understand about the Incarnation and about the heart of the Christian and the Christmas message. Listen to that one word from 1 John 1: 2 again when he says: -- THIS LIFE WAS REVEALED, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to YOU THE ETERNAL LIFE THAT WAS WITH THE FATHER AND WAS REVEALED TO US. Do you hear what John says and how he describes the heart of the Incarnation: It’s not just about who God is, who we are to be, but it is finally about why all this matters: “the Eternal life that was with the Father was revealed….” Through Jesus, God has made hope clear to us: In Jesus he has given us not just the gift of life, but the gift of eternal life. For the Christian, hope is not real unless it is Eternal.
Over Christmas I had several discussions with German friends and one of them recommended a movie for me to see. It was a German movie, in German which was called “Cherry Blossoms”. In many ways the movie was very strange. A wife dies and the husband grieves and in his grieving he finally goes to Japan, where his wife always wanted to go, but didn’t. This is how he finally comes to grip with “where she’s gone.” He goes to Japan, dresses in her clothes and goes to die at the foot of Mount Fuji. I told you it was a little weird. But at the heart of the movie was the big question. What happens after we die? What happens to those we love? What will happen to us? In that movie, the only answer was that life was beautiful like a Cherry Blossom in Japan, but you’d better enjoy it now, because tomorrow, like the blossom in spring, soon it will be gone. There’s certainly truth here, but it’s not enough truth and it misses the greatest truth the world has ever been offered: Eternal life. This is what Jesus offers. This is what God reveled in the flesh: GOD did not let the flesh of Jesus see corruption, but he raised him up, AND SO God will also give us that gift, when we trust him. This is our only true hope. It is much better than a Cherry Blossom, no matter how beautiful they are.
So, now, what is the Incarnation? One of the most powerful expressions of the incarnational aspect of Christmas, is a play that was written by a German Lutheran minister. His name was Guenter Rutenborn. The play was written in 1945 as Germany was reeling from the impact of the terrible World War II, and Pastor Rutenborn was struggling with the question on so many people's minds back in that day, namely, who was responsible for the terrible agony that the world had experienced through World War II. And so the play begins with a group of refugees, displaced persons, milling around, asking who's to blame, and the various answers that were in the air were voiced there.
Some said Hitler was to blame; others said, "No, it was the munitions manufacturers who financed him." Others said it was the apathy of the German people, but then suddenly a man comes up out of the crowd and says, "Do you want to know who is really to blame for all the suffering we've been through? I'll tell you. God is to blame. He is the one that created this world. He is the one who has let it be what it is." And everybody catches up the chorus. They turn with one voice to say, "God is to blame. God is to blame."
And so in the play, God is brought down on the stage and is put in the dock, and God is tried for the crime of creation. He is found guilty and the judge says, "The crime is so severe that there are going to have to be the worst of all sentences. I hereby sentence God to have to live on this earth as a human being." And the three archangels are given the task of carrying out the sentence.
The first archangel walks to the end of the stage and says, "I'm going to see to it when God serves His sentence that He knows what it's like to be obscure and to be poor. He will be borne on the backside of no where with a peasant girl for His mother. There will be a suspicion of shame about his birth, and He will have to live as a Jew in a Jew-hating world."
The second archangel starts out and says, "I'm going to see to it when God serves his sentence that He knows what it's like to fail and to suffer disappointment. No one will ever understand what He is trying to do." The third archangel said, "I'm going to see to it when God serves His sentence that He knows what it's like to suffer. I'm going to see to it that He has all kinds of physical pain. At the end of His life, He's going to be absolutely executed in as painful a way as possible."
And with that the three archangels disappear. The houselights go down, and it suddenly dawns on you that God has already served that sentence. He knows what it's like to live as a human being, which means there's nothing you face today that is going to be strange to God (From John Claypool in a sermon "God Became Who We Are" .
Therefore, the great message of Christmas is that God became like us, so that we could understand better who God is, and we could believe with all our hearts that God understands what we are, and he has shown us how to love each other. This has still got to be Good News which came to to us at Christmas! .Amen.
Some said Hitler was to blame; others said, "No, it was the munitions manufacturers who financed him." Others said it was the apathy of the German people, but then suddenly a man comes up out of the crowd and says, "Do you want to know who is really to blame for all the suffering we've been through? I'll tell you. God is to blame. He is the one that created this world. He is the one who has let it be what it is." And everybody catches up the chorus. They turn with one voice to say, "God is to blame. God is to blame."
And so in the play, God is brought down on the stage and is put in the dock, and God is tried for the crime of creation. He is found guilty and the judge says, "The crime is so severe that there are going to have to be the worst of all sentences. I hereby sentence God to have to live on this earth as a human being." And the three archangels are given the task of carrying out the sentence.
The first archangel walks to the end of the stage and says, "I'm going to see to it when God serves His sentence that He knows what it's like to be obscure and to be poor. He will be borne on the backside of no where with a peasant girl for His mother. There will be a suspicion of shame about his birth, and He will have to live as a Jew in a Jew-hating world."
The second archangel starts out and says, "I'm going to see to it when God serves his sentence that He knows what it's like to fail and to suffer disappointment. No one will ever understand what He is trying to do." The third archangel said, "I'm going to see to it when God serves His sentence that He knows what it's like to suffer. I'm going to see to it that He has all kinds of physical pain. At the end of His life, He's going to be absolutely executed in as painful a way as possible."
And with that the three archangels disappear. The houselights go down, and it suddenly dawns on you that God has already served that sentence. He knows what it's like to live as a human being, which means there's nothing you face today that is going to be strange to God (From John Claypool in a sermon "God Became Who We Are" .
Therefore, the great message of Christmas is that God became like us, so that we could understand better who God is, and we could believe with all our hearts that God understands what we are, and he has shown us how to love each other. This has still got to be Good News which came to to us at Christmas! .Amen.
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