Creation and Jesus: Planned Together

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.

To Sum Up... 

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

 

Darkness and Light: Who Wins?

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.

 

            Feels like the first day of Creation.  There was darkness and God said, “Let there be light”, and there was.  While this verse draws from that imagery, it is metaphor.  There is another darkness and there is another light.  What do we know about the light?  We know that the light of all people was the life that came into being in Jesus. 

            The light of all people came in the creation of Adam and Eve.  They were to be the parents of all humanity in right relationship with God.  The light should have been all over us.  But then came the Fall of Humanity.  Original Sin.  Disobedience to God.  Darkness was introduced into the light of all people.

            Understand that John is one entire story, beginning to end.  The death and resurrection of Jesus were accomplished so that the light, the life, shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.  So humanity messed up in the Garden, they got booted, and things got rather rough.  But we were never without hope.  The darkness is the darkening of the light of God in our lives because of sin.  Yet that beacon, that light, it shines on and the darkness did not overcome it.

            Adam and Eve fell, latter part of Genesis 2 into Genesis 3.  There are curses put in place against humanity by God for what we did.  But even in those curses, there is hope, there is looking forward.  There is a Plan.  And John is writing down the record of that plan.

Assumption:

It occurred to me last night to ask the question, “If the gospel writer wants us to make all these leaps and connections, why didn’t John make them obvious?”  That goes to the question of why the gospels became written documents in the first place.  Our best guess is that these started as oral traditions, the apostles themselves sharing the stories of Jesus to the gathered people.

            But then two things happened.  The first is that the church began to expand well beyond the people who knew Jesus personally.  Acts says there was a hundred and twenty or so “in the church” at Pentecost.  After that, it grew exponentially.  The second thing that happened is that Jesus did not return in the living memory of the first generation of apostles.  They began to die and, with them, the ‘authority’ of the eyewitness died.  So these things were written down.  It keeps the story straight as Jesus’ church expands and it keeps the story right as the witnesses moved on to be with our Lord once again.

            What that means for the study of John is that we are uncovering what presuppositions that John makes about what his audience already knows.  What does he have to make explicit?  What can he assume they already know?  How much they knew is different from how much we know. 

            So, in the community of faith, the Gospel of John is a document with authority, and we are digging into what it means.  For those of us in the faith, it deepens our understanding of the incredible vista of what God has revealed.  For those of us who are new to the faith, it invites us into the joyful work that God has accomplished for our redemption through Jesus.

Pastor Peter

For Humanity, Not Just Life, But Light!

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.

 

Backstory and Sidebar.

            To read the book of Genesis is to read what many scholars have called ‘two’ accounts of creation.  The first, in Genesis 1, is the story of the Week.  In six days, God created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day, God rested.  The 'second' is found in Genesis 2.  I put that is ' ' because, for me, these are not so much separate accounts, implying they were put together, instead of the second developing from the first.  

Sidebar.

Irrespective, it is from this seventh day, when God rested, it is from God’s hallowing of this day that we have the Sabbath, the day of the Lord.  In Jewish Scripture, this is Saturday, the final day of the week.  In the Christian tradition, we moved the Sabbath to the first day of the week, to Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead.

Return.

            In Genesis 2, there is another, more focused account of creation.  One of the significant distinctions between the two accounts has to do with humanity.  In Genesis 1, there is no distinction between the creation of plants, animals, birds, fish, and humans, except for the days on which they were created AND the designation that humanity was created 'in the image' of God.  In Genesis 2, there is an added focus on the life of humanity not present in Genesis 1, ⁷then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.  If this were a consideration of Genesis, looking at the connection of God's breath and God's image would be our next step.  But this is about John, so we will stay with John's language.

            “What had come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all the people.”  In Genesis 1, there is life, then, in Genesis 2, we dig down some and there is “people life”, life coming from God ‘breathing’ into the nostrils of man the breath of life.  Why is that important?  In Genesis 1, humanity is distinguished from other animals because they are created in the image of God.  Humanity will become the stewards of God’s creation.  From life comes the light of all the people.  Humans are set apart from the rest of creation.

            It is life, it is light, it came into being through him, through Jesus, it came into being through the one who created us.  It is important, very important because as we go forward, the reference to ‘him’, to Jesus, as the light, is foundational to his presentation in the Gospel.  One of Jesus' titles is 'the Light of the World'.  

            This language takes us back to the very first day of Creation, where God's first command was "Let there be light."  And, as we will see next, where there is light, there is also darkness.

Jesus Not Just At Creation, But Creating...

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.

            “Him.”  The pronoun continues.  This is ‘the Word’, already interpreted to mean Jesus.  Jesus was God.  Jesus was in the beginning with God-meaning before creation itself.  And now he is the Creator.  “All things came into being through him, and (to be clear), without him, not one thing came into being.”

            The scope of Jesus expands here.  If it were just the first two verses, it might be argued that Jesus was present for creation, on the sidelines, an observer.  Not ‘all’ of God was involved in creation.  But this sentence crushes that possibility.  All things came into being through Jesus.  We know from Genesis that God created all.  The Word, Jesus, was God, so Jesus is God who created all things.  The second half of the sentence looks reinforcement, ‘without Jesus, not one thing came into being.’  In other words, no exceptions.

            It is kind of a resume for Jesus.  There are a lot of other names and titles that will be attached to Jesus: Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Son of Mary….the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One…but John is taking pains to identify Jesus with God, Jesus as God.  What these first three verses of the Gospel of John have done is to take Jesus and lay him into the original creation story of Genesis 1.  First, in the beginning, in this verse, a summary that Jesus is the creator through the days of creation that follow.

            These are three verses and there is a whole Gospel to follow.  John begins by establishing the pedigree of Jesus in the orders of the creator and the creation.  This leads us into Jesus’ role in the present.

Sidebar: Who is John?  Did he write this gospel?  So, of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in none of them does the author self-identify.  In the history of Biblical interpretation, they like to argue about this. 

Who is John?  There are a number of men named “John” in the Bible, including Jesus’ own cousin, John the Baptizer.  I understand this John to be the disciple of Jesus, the one who is listed as the author of four other books of the New Testament, the letters 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John as well as the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelations. 

For some context, if you remember the controversy over the novel “The Da Vince Code”.  The novelist referenced Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper and argued that Mary Magdalene was ‘hidden’ in it.  She was next to Jesus, leaning in on him-a place of intimacy.  History argues that this was John, who is described as ‘beloved of Jesus’-thus having this place of intimacy.  Traditionally, John was the youngest of the disciples, and-also according to tradition-the only one of the Twelve who was die naturally, in his old age, while the rest were martyred.

Who wrote the gospels?  It depends on what you assume about the timeline.  Many modern scholars argue that the gospels were not written until after the lives of the first generation of Jesus’ believers, thus it could not be those who are named.  This argument rests on dating the grammar of our earliest gospel manuscripts.  Other scholars will argue that these are written in the first generation because dating methods do not offer a particular date, but a range of time.  There are also arguments on how the gospels emerged.  Did the authors sit down and write them?  Or were the written forms based on oral accounts?  Is this a single work or a compilation of works? 

To make a long story short (and I am probably too late for that), there are arguments to be made for these authors and arguments to be made that the successors of these authors gathered these gospels ‘in the name of’ the authors, and arguments to be made that these names were attached by tradition to these writings.    

Does it matter?  Does it matter who wrote them?  They are in the Bible and have been since the New Testament became the Word of God.  Is the importance to be found in whose name is on the manuscript or its contents?  For me, I question scholarly motives on these things.  Does the scholar want to cast doubt on the Bible?  Does the scholar want to lock in the Bible narrative?

Here is what I think.  John wrote John.  In Seminary, I learned about grammatical studies that compared the gospel with the other writings attributed to John in the New Testament and they match.  In terms of the age of the gospels, John is argued by some to be the last of the gospels written but the earliest dated gospel fragment (not grammatical age but the age of the physical manuscript) we have is from John.  What bothers me about arguments to make John the last of the written gospels, the farthest from the ‘actual’ time and experience of Jesus, is that this somehow makes it less ‘trustworthy’ than the others.   

And that is no longer a scholarly debate on the origins of the New Testament, that’s an attempt to undercut the writings that are the foundation of my faith.

And Now For Something Completely Different…. “Santa Baby”

                 I have been using Spotify regularly for the last half year, getting a feel for how it works for both music and podcasts.  As Christmas has come, their playlists have been a welcome alternative to the Christmas radio stations that play ‘current’ stuff with commercials.  It is also more convenient and portable than the CD’s of our Christmas collection.  I save those for quiet times in the living room, considering the tree and reflecting on the beauty of the Season.

                I was not looking for anything in particular, sweeping between various Christmas playlists, when I settled on Santa Baby (not sure if I was preparing to listen or fast forward to something else) and I found seven versions of the song were available from this search.  I knew a few of them and the list caught my interest.  So, my family probably thought I was a little nuts listening to the same song seven times in a row.  That is not the first time I have done that, truth be told, but its usually one particular song that I “repeat” out of my system.

                I do not know how the selections were arranged in the search, by ‘play request  frequency’ or some other criteria, but I listened in the order the search provided.  So, if you have not settled on a particular version of Santa Baby, here is a brief overview of what I found.

                “Santa Baby”, offered by the Pussy Cat Dolls.  What struck me was that this version had excellent “girl group” vocals.

                “Santa Baby”, offered by Taylor Swift.  This is a more ‘country’ version, a little slower, with Ms. Swift providing us with a more soulful undertone to the lyrics.

                “Santa Baby”, offered in duet by Arianna Grande and Liz Gilles.  They take turns and harmonize as they sing the song.  The harmonies are very pleasant.  Individually, I am guessing it is Ms. Grande who is offering a very breathy ‘Betty Boop’ interpretation of the tune while Ms. Gilles sings it in a straight forward manner.

                “Santa Baby”, offered by Gwen Stefani.  I heard a natural ‘Betty Boop’ interpretation of the lyrics that I find in Ms. Stefani’s singing.  I also got a 1940’s vibe, as though she fronted a big band. 

                “Santa Baby”, offered by Michael Bublé.  His is one of the popular versions on the radio today.  He tries to ‘dude’ the lyrics, looking for a ’65 instead of a ’54 convertible, for example.  I like Michael Bublé and I love the meme that has him emerging from his cave for the Christmas Season but maybe because he is singing against the gender assumption of the song, it has an almost parody quality to it.  This quality emerged as I listened to it against the other versions in this list.

                “Santa Baby”, offered by Madonna.  This is ‘the’ radio version that I have heard in these past few years.  Hers is the most deliberate “Betty Boop” voice for the song and I found this version to have a little more of an upbeat to the tempo.

                “Santa Baby”, offered by Eartha Kitt.  This is the original version, offered back in 1953.  It is also my favorite, for me, THE version that I would put on my own Christmas playlist (which is an idea I have to think about now…)

Please note that there is no attempt to be objective in this list at all.  I share the distinctions and distinctives that I heard in them and I invite you to enjoy this Christmas song for yourselves.

Peace,  Peter Hofstra

A Bad-Guy...but not a bad guy...

                 I love the line in Wreck It Ralph in the ‘Bad Guy’ support group of video game villains that goes something like “just because he is a ‘Bad-Guy’ doesn’t mean that he is a bad guy…”  Just because he is the bad guy in a video game does not mean he is a bad guy in life.  It is like Jessica Rabbit (going back a couple of years), “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

                If I get this right, and I am not very good at philosophical undertakings, this is a post-modern consideration by these characters, as opposed to a modern consideration.  Well, thank you very much.  I actually liked those quotes, but now you have bored me off your blog...  I practically bored myself, except there is something bugging me.  There is a point here.  

                In the ‘modern’ way of thinking, there are good guys and there are bad guys based on how we structure the world.  In “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, Jessica Rabbit was assumed to be bad because of how she was drawn.  Wreck-It Ralph is a bad guy because Ralph, well, wrecks it.

                So now come to the ‘after modern’, the post-modern.  Jessica is not bad because she does not consider herself to be bad.  The bad guys in the support group do not consider themselves to be bad guys.  Therefore, they are not.  One has to “self-identify” as good or bad and not be branded by the cultural structures in which they live.

                Self-identification, as I understand it, is the centerpiece of gender fluidity and the LGBTQx movement in our present culture.

                Okay, so there is the philosophy lesson.  What’s next?  A defense of one and a condemnation of the other?  Which one would Jesus support? 

                I wish it were that simple.  But here is my problem.  Traditionally, to translate that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" mandates that people acknowledge that they are sinners and turn to Jesus.  That’s the structure of the theological world that we have emerged from.  But a lot of people self-identify as being good people and wonder why Jesus automatically condemns them for just being human? 

                And here is the one that really kicks my backside.  I know good people, this came to sharp relief working with cops, who put their lives on the line as surely as Jesus gave his life for us but tell jokes and behave in ways that no church would ever want to see in, for example, the life of a Sunday School teacher.  But the way to Jesus is that they must be convicted first of being a sinner?  Of being a bad guy even though they are not bad guys?

                You can have your fire and brimstone preachers telling their audiences that they are bound for hell except for Jesus, but if the audience thinks the preacher is a big joke, then what?  Sit back and let the burning commence?

                Spending my time talking about how the grand scale of Christmas shows me a world that is looking for Jesus, in some manner, got me wondering about why the world doesn't find him so easily? Convincing someone they are a bad person in this day and age is more of a moral insult than it is a moral conviction. 

                I don’t have a full answer yet, because I ain’t Jesus-for which heaven and earth both give thanks I have no doubt.  But how about this?  The world should be pretty near perfect.  We have the science and the tech to end hunger, we have the ways and means to end war and all the global pollutions that we are threatening our earth with.  We have a world full of leaders and followers who all swear up and down that they want peace and to live in peace with everyone else.  But we haven’t, we aren’t, and it appears we are lying.

                And that hasn’t changed.  We can feed the hungry, but we don’t.  We can fix global warming, but we don’t.  So what is going on here?  The branding in Christianity for this is ‘sin’.  There is something there to be considered very seriously.  Because the world is a bad place and Jesus is the answer.  So how do we bridge that need?

                I invite you to come with me to think about that one.

Peter 

Live...Love...Believe

                 That was the message in the windows of Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in NYC for the 2020 Thanksgiving Day parade.  The Thanksgiving Day parade begins with Tom Turkey and ends with the arrival of Santa Claus.  For many, this is the signal of the start of the Christmas Season, not the Christmas decorations starting before Halloween (and in some cases before October...). 

                “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”.  September 21, 1897, part of an editorial response in the newspaper, the Sun, it has entered the lore of the Christmas Season and been a key part of Macy’s expression of Christmas for a number of years.  I think it is included because it underpins the call to “believe” that is ongoing part of a Macy’s Christmas.

                In some circles, there is a tremendous amount of angst about ‘believe’.  What I mean is that it seems to represent the ongoing removal of Christ from Christmas (like in the bumper sticker in the last post).  The secular call to believe pulls us away from the sacred call to believe in Jesus. 

               But, for Christendom, there is nothing new in that.  Living in a world of sin, the devil has been trying to remove everything from our faith and leave it an empty husk.  Thus, the reign of the devil can be finally confirmed with no bothers ‘from above’.

                And if we look at it that way, it is depressing set of circumstances to consider for Christmas, the theft of our belief'.  But sin is the depressing set of circumstances under which the world lives.  What if ‘Believe’ was not an advertising ploy to attract more shoppers, but something more heartfelt?  Advertising, by its very nature, seeks to sell us things.  In the worst examples, it has to convince us we are ugly, bad, smelly, weird, or whatever in order to find redemption in their products.  But for it to work, advertising has to connect with something in us-and I think they have connected with something deep in the instance of 'believe'. 

                So, a reminder of my point of view, God is in control, no matter what it might feel like otherwise.  So what are we to believe in?  Santa?  Giving?  Buying at Macy’s to walk in Santa’s shoes?  Maybe.  But the first two pieces of this ad campaign are ‘live’ and ‘love’.  Is this a cry for help?  Because Christmas is THE season that we still believe brings out the best in people.  Redemption is the ongoing theme of the season, from Dickens “A Christmas Carol” to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”.   The world wants love to be in control and seeks what to believe to make it so-because it is not in control. 

                Believe in what?  In Santa?  In the power of the human spirit?  That is going to be a hard sell.  If we believe Santa embodies the best of humanity, love and caring and a spirit of giving, the evidence of our own senses tells us that it is not something humanity can live up to.  Maybe we are not as hard hearted as Scrooge who spoke about ‘decreasing the surplus population’, but people will go hungry this season.  (Matthew 25 talks about that in eye opening detail).

                So how about believing in the reason for the season?  Maybe Jesus did not get a float in the parade but the spirit of Christ underpinned every display.  Maybe a creche is not something that we have yet to make into a Broadway musical (but if someone reads this and decides to do it, please let me know).  But Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Jesus is the way to redemption.  “Acting nice” is a reflection of the true ‘niceness’ to be found in Jesus. 

                I see the word ‘believe’ and I see a call for help to find something that can truly be believed in.  And I have the joy of something true that I can, that we can believe in.  So, this season, I am looking for divine guidance to help those people who are seeking to believe.  I invite you to join me.