January 19, 2021
John 1: 1-5
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the
light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1: 1-5,
in other words…
So we presuppose that the “Word” is Jesus, because of
what comes later. The Word was in the
beginning-before Creation. The Word is
with God and the Word is God. So God is
not a solitary figure, but also not dual figures. The Word, in the Genesis story, stands out as
the Creative Voice of God. God spoke,
and it was. Everything in Creation came
into being through him (Jesus), without exception. Of all that Jesus created, life is singled
out, not any life, but life that is the light of all people. God’s first creative act, “Let there be light.” This light shines in the darkness, the darkness
that was what God was creating from and the darkness of our lives of sin,
because of what comes later.
By inserting Jesus into the opening of this reading of
John 1, it lessens some of the Creation parallels. John says “the Word”, Genesis tells us “God
said…” In him was life…for all people…feels
like the verse in Genesis where God breathed into the nostril of the dirt manakin. The life was light to all people. That’s the hinge for me. If the people need light, they were in darkness. If the life is the light-the light that came
into being in him (Jesus), that life is light in the darkness. So…darkness came to the lives of all
people? Sin is the darkness that
overtook life and brought about death.
Jesus is the Light that shines in the darkness, his life for our lives,
his light overcomes the darkness in all.
An
Implication…
Adam and Eve screwed up and because of them, we all live
into sin. They opened the way for each
of us to spit in God’s eye and do our own thing. The coming of Jesus might be considered the ‘divine
fix’. Humans broke it and God needed a
repair plan. Action…reaction. The trouble with that is God is left looking
a little helpless. God did not see it
coming?
Or is John, instead of ‘rewriting’ the Creation story to
backfill it with the presence of Jesus, what if John is revealing to us how
Jesus was integral to Creation? One
thing to remember about how God reveals Godself to us in the Bible, it is over
a long timeframe, and it progresses.
What God revealed to Moses was more than to Abraham. What God revealed to Isaiah was more than to
Moses. What God revealed to John was more
than to Isaiah.
So ‘in the beginning’, before Creation, God’s plan for us
was already in place. It is the age-old
Christmas paradox…naughty or nice? According
to Ralphie’s father (A Christmas Story)… “he (Santa) knows, he always knows…” For humanity, naughty or nice? God knows, God always knew. To truly love someone, there must be the
possibility of rejection, otherwise it is just fancy programming. God created us with the possibility of our
rejection, which we took disadvantage of, and God started with the Plan of
Restoration in place.
And that is just the first five verses…imagine what the
next five will bring?
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all
might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the
light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into
the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through
him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not
accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of
the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have
seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Pastor Pete
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