"The Word Became Flesh" John 1:1-18

​Sermon Intro:
For several weeks, we have been reading from the prophets, with their concerns and promises for the people in exile, looking for God’s presence and call, in unfamiliar territory. Today we transition from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament. From now through Easter we will be reading from the Gospel According to John, which was written between 90-100 CE to a community struggling with how to differentiate themselves in an increasingly hostile environment, as they no longer fit into most of synagogue life but were also threatening to the Roman Empire. Each of the four gospels has a unique perspective as they tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Whereas last year in our study of Luke, who was always just ahead of Jesus, looking back like an historian, we might think of John as looking at Jesus from above, from a cosmic perspective, seeing a big picture rather than small immediate details. We’ll hear this from the very beginning, as the gospel opens with an overture that, just like a musical overture, hints at the themes that are to come. I am reading from chapter 1, beginning at verse 1 through verse 18, from the Common English Bible Version.[1]
Scripture: John 1:1-18
1 In the beginning was the Word
    and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God.
2 The Word was with God in the beginning.
3 Everything came into being through the Word,
    and without the Word
    nothing came into being.
What came into being
4     through the Word was life,[a] 
    and the life was the light for all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.
6 A man named John was sent from God. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning the light, so that through him everyone would believe in the light. 8 He himself wasn’t the light, but his mission was to testify concerning the light.
9 The true light that shines on all people
    was coming into the world.
10 The light was in the world,
    and the world came into being through the light,
        but the world didn’t recognize the light.
11 The light came to his own people,
    and his own people didn’t welcome him.
12 But those who did welcome him,
        those who believed in his name,
    he authorized to become God’s children,
13         born not from blood
        nor from human desire or passion,
        but born from God.
14 The Word became flesh
    and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
    glory like that of a father’s only son,
        full of grace and truth.
15 John testified about him, crying out, “This is the one of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than me because he existed before me.’”
16 From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace;
17     as the Law was given through Moses,
    so grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God.
    God the only Son,
        who is at the Father’s side,
        has made God known.
 
This is the Word of our Lord. Thanks be to God.
 
Sermon
 
What do you think of, when you hear this first verse of John? 
In the beginning was the Word
    and the Word was with God
    and the Word was God.
 
Genesis? In the beginning. But not just that first verse. Throughout this passage (images of light and dark) it’s clear John, who has a Jewish background, is pointing us back, reminding us of the Hebrew scriptures, reminding us of our story, of who we are and whose we are.
 
Simultaneously, what we might not pick up on, is that John was also a Hellenistic thinker.  And so while John uses that first verse to point Jews to the creation story,  Dr. Robert Williamson notes the logos, or the Word, in stoic philosophy  was understood as the organizing principal of the cosmos. It is the principal by which the whole world is held together.” So John as a Hellenistic thinker with a Jewish background is connecting both to Jesus. In the beginning was the WORD. This Jesus who we are going to see incarnate is fundamental to all these things.[2] To our faith and our thought.
 
One of the things I find beautiful and hopeful in this passage is how darkness and light are tensed. I’ll have to read it to you from the NRSV translation as the CEB messes this up, but hear this:
Verse five: 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
 
Do you hear that awkwardness? Hear it again. In grammar speak, we’d say that was unparallel.  
 
Verbs about darkness are past tense. Verbs about light are all present tense.
 
There was a time when darkness was a threat. There was time when we lived despair and without hope. 
But that time is no more. 
The Word that became flesh changed that reality. 
Changed the threat of darkness into oblivion. Into something that is no longer present. THAT is of the past. 
 
This new thing, this new thing that has been here from the beginning, wipes away darkness. It is the light. 
 
And our job, John tells us, is to testify to the light.
 
Advent, is about preparation. But we would be remiss if we thought it was preparing only for the birth of the Christ Child. You see, Advent is also about preparing for his return. It’s a different type of waiting. It’s waiting in hope and with a sense of joy of what has already been done.
 
What I think John wants us to ask ourselves, about this incarnate God who is ruler of the cosmos and has been with us from the beginning-The GOD of Abraham, and Moses, what John wants us to ask is how are we waiting? 
 
In which kingdom do we stand? The kingdom of Caesar, the empire, the principalities and powers, the system, “the man” who thinks it is ultimate and self-created, or do we stand firmly, waiting in the Kingdom of God. 
 
Of a God, John tells us who was here from the beginning.
Of a God, John tells us, whose own people didn’t recognize him and rejected him.
Of a God, John tells us, who has the authority to redefine what it means to be a child of God. Not by wealth nor by blood or lineage, but by faith alone.
Of a God, John tells us, who fully emptied, was made vulnerable, in order to dwell among us. 
 
In which kingdom will you stand?
 
From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace;
17     as the Law was given through Moses,
    so grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.


Grace and truth.
 
This is HOW we wait.
In grace and in truth.
Grace without truth is a meaningless life.
Truth without grace, is binary and absolute.
 
Grace and truth held together, came into being through Jesus Christ. 
 
And that’s how we testify to the light. As approach the longest night of the year, that’s how we testify to the light.
 
At this time of year there is a celebration of light in the Jewish tradition. There is a midrash, a Jewish story about creation.
 
When Adam on the day of his creation saw the sun sinking in the sky before him, he said, “Woe is me! Because I acted offensively, the world is darkening for me and is about to return to darkness and desolation—indeed, this is the death that Heaven has decreed for me.” So he sat down to fast and to weep throughout the night, while Eve wept beside him. But when the dawn began slowly rising like a column, he said, “Such is the way of nature,” and then proceeded to offer up a bullock.[3]
 
 Rabbi Amy Robertson shares, “when Adam sees the sun going down at the end of the day and it gets very dark, he thinks the world is ending. He thinks, this is it. This is the end of creation. Of course the sun comes up in the morning. The darkness was overcome. And Adam realizes not only that that wasn’t the end of the world, but that his sins were not really that powerful. It wasn’t his actions that caused darkness in the first place, but it’s also not his actions that are causing light.”[4]
 
Ellie Wiesel has a quote related to this midrash. God gave Adam a secret. And that secret was not how to begin, but how to begin again. 
 
And so friends, as we move through these longest days of the year, where the sun sets early and rises late, may we do so standing in the kingdom of God. Remembering who we are and whose we are, and that all from the beginning to the end is God’s. And may we testify in the darkness to the light, to the light of the one who came to dwell among us. May we testify in truth and in grace.
 
In the name of the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,
Amen.


[1] From Terri Petterson (my congregation is used to me talking about the gospels' perspectives as they tell the story of Jesus: Mark from right beside Jesus, practically hand in hand, close in to the details and action; Matthew from behind, looking at Jesus through the lens of the OT; Luke from just ahead, looking back like a historian; John from above, seeing how the cosmic picture all comes together.)
 

[2] Dr. Robert Williamson, BibleWorm Podcast for December 19, 2021.

[3] https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/adams-fear-of-a-darkening-world/

[4] Rabbi Amy Robertson, BibleWorm Podcast for Dec 19, 2021.