John 1: 6-14 January 22, 2021
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.
So
there is a song called “Cult of Personality” released back in the late 80’s by
the band Living Colour. As I was reading
our sentence of the day, that song began to echo in my mind. I had to look up the name and its release on Wikipedia. I was going to look up the lyrics for
something profound to throw in, but that required more work than Wikipedia, so
let me include their comment: The title comes from a psychological
phenomenon called cult of personality, and the lyrics contain many
political references. Truth be told,
I do not use Wikipedia for real research, but as a pointer toward research
possibilities except when it comes to pop culture references.
What
has any of this to do with our sentence?
It strike me this is placed here precisely to warn against a cult of
personality forming around John the baptizer.
This is particularly important in light of how John conducted his
ministry. He was not simply preaching repentance,
but baptizing repentance. He was the one
who was taking people to a new phase of their spiritual lives. Looking to him as a divine presence was a
very human next step.
How
do I know that is a very human next step?
Crop circles. Wait…what? Remember crop circles? Geometric designs showing up first and mostly
in fields in the South of England back in the 1980’s and 90’s (and still
today). A scientist who analyzed them
said the grain was bent over so precisely because of a
highly advanced microwave beaming tool.
So? Well, people came to these sites
and they lay down in the circles, because they were convinced these were a
connection to the transcendent. It was a
spiritual experience to touch something greater than themselves. It was that footage that convinced the
hoaxers to finally step forward and admit their scam. Their highly advanced microwave beaming
tool? A board with ropes on either end
so they could walk and knock down the crops to make their designs.
What is the point of that? The point is that people are in need, sometimes in desperate need, of something or someone to believe in. It is easy to marginalize folks of this mindset, but that does them a grave disservice. These are people in need of something, and it was something real that John was bringing with him.
He
was testifying to the light, he was pointing the way to Jesus. He was pointing the way to the real transcendent
power in this world. But when someone, and it may be us, does this powerfully, it is so easy for the world to tempt us into believing
that we ourselves have some kind of divinity within us. It is like the crackpots who claimed to kill
in the Lord’s Name. We know that ‘voices
in the head’ are most often caused by mental illness. I say ‘most often’ because I cannot presume
to discount the ways of the Lord. Because this kind of revelation is in the Bible. The example that jumps to mind is the Lord speaking to Joseph about Mary before the birth of Jesus. But we
do have a way of checking these kinds of phenomena. Does the voice someone hears speak in line with
the revelation we have already received from God? Does this proclamation line up with the truth
of the Bible? It did for Joseph. John’s testimony too lined up with what the
Scriptures taught. It is not definitive
proof, but, to paraphrase Scripture, we walk by faith and not by proof.
They
were NOT the light. That is so important
to understand. Because trying to take
credit for the light as a human being is an incredible temptation. “I am the one that saved… or I am the one
that knows the truth… or I am the chosen one…”
How many cults out there have open books and open doors to all their
teachings? How many seek to take their members
for every penny that they can to learn the ‘secret teachings’? How many people watched Leah Remini?
Those
people existed at the time the Gospel was written. They existed in the time of Jesus. They exist
today. But Jesus is the Light. That’s what we need to take away from this
passage, that’s what we need to guard against the pretenders. That’s where our salvation comes from.
Pastor Peter Hofstra
No comments:
Post a Comment