In the Beginning……… John 1:1-18

When you came to church today, I am sure that you were expecting to hear a message about the visit of the wise men. January 6^th is often called “Little Christmas”. It is also the time when the Eastern Orthodox and other orthodox communities celebrate Christmas. Our focus has traditionally been on the birth of Jesus and the visit of the shepherds. If we were to investigate the historical record in more detail, we would probably discover that the visit of the wise men may not have occurred as close to the actual time of the birth. Hence, Herod’s decision to take no chances and kill every male child in Bethlehem two years old and under. Of course, we are not going to celebrate the visit of the wise men only once every two years because the visit reveals a truth that will only become clear in the future, and that is, that the one born in Bethlehem will not just be the king of the Jews but the king of the world.  We will enter what will come to be known as the Season of Epiphany which means an awakening, a revelation. The accounts that we will explore over these next weeks leading up to Lent will awaken and reveal the true reasons for Jesus’ life and confirm to us why Jesus is indeed the Son of God and the only one truly able to build the bridge that is needed to reconnect us with our Creator in this life and the next.

Today I want to explore something that we often overlook.  When we celebrate the seasons of Advent and Christmas, our focus is on the birth stories of Jesus. We want to be reminded of the visits of the angels both before and at the birth of Jesus. We want to be reminded of the miracle of that birth and what that birth means.   Yet notice that in every traditional service of lessons and carols, the readings start with readings from the prophet Isaiah and Micah that predict the coming of Jesus and the place where he will be born and end with this reading from the Gospel of John. Why would there be this connection between the prophets, the gospels that recorded the birth stories and the Gospel of John? Because the author of this gospel wants us to understand that the events that brought Jesus into this world were not the result of some random divine intervention.  The one who came in the form that people met as Jesus was indeed part of God from the beginning of time.

John’s experience of Jesus as a teacher and a healer led him to understand that Jesus not only spoke the divine imperatives that people needed to hear but that he was truly the Word of God.  Genesis records that it was the spoken words of God that created all that came to be. Whatever this world was, it only took its shape when the words of God gave it life and purpose.   The very existence of the world that we have been born into came about through the spoken word of the one we know as God.  And after all else had been created, the word of God determined to create humanity in the image of the Creator.  Yet throughout the Old Testament, there is no firm description of God that we could point to and say this is what God looks like.  Before the coming of God in Jesus, people experienced the presence of God in fire, in cloud, and in stillness.  They heard God’s voice calling to them in visions and dreams. They had conversations with God, and they felt the presence of God.

Drawing on his experience of Jesus and everything that Jesus revealed about himself, John concluded that the one who had walked on this earth was not just God in human form. This was the embodiment of the One who had creatively spoken at the beginning of time and had ushered into existence this world and all that is in it. He was the One who had given birth to this world, and he was the One who would give a new birth to this world.

John reveals to us in the first 5 verses a mystery that defies our human logic and challenges us to recognize that God is more than we might ever have imagined. He is a being who is very much like us in so many ways and yet also a being beyond what we can ever be.   He is the Parent; he is the Child.  Jesus is the very Word of God who not only spoke at the beginning of the world but has now spoken in the flesh and who will continue to speak through the Spirit given to those who will have faith and follow in the ways of the Son who came from the Father.

John knew that in Jesus he had met God – the God of creation, the God of the patriarchs, the God of the prophets, the God of the world. He had experienced the touch of God; he had felt the gaze of God; he had felt the love of God.  And he knew in his heart and in his soul that this was the One who had the power to not only draw people back to God but to give them the right to be called children of God.

Through Jesus, the Word of God, John found a freedom that he knew many people had been denied. He knew that the world had judged so many to be unworthy of even being accepted by God.  John had discovered that the One he had met, the one known as Jesus, was the only One who could grant people true freedom from the prejudice and the oppression that judged and condemned them for something that was beyond their control. John explores that discovery through his recollection of the life and ministry of Jesus as Jesus brings God’s gifts of mercy and forgiveness, healing, and release to so many. And at the end in the passion of Christ, he discovers that God’s creative Word and Spirit will never come to an end until that time that the final Word is spoken.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God!

AMEN