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"JOHN WAS RIGHT – AND HE STILL IS!"
GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT:
JOHN 1:1-5

DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 20, 2009, 8:30 AM

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

MESSAGE:  Without question, 2009 is going to go into the record books as one of the most difficult years in modern history.  On a global scale, while the precipitating events took place several months before the start of 2009, this year will long be remembered as the trough, the low point, the nadir of the “great global recession” of the 21st century.  For us as United States citizens the “world war without a front,” the conflict with terrorism, drags on -- with ongoing fighting and/or flare-ups this year in Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, England, Saudi Arabia, and most frighteningly, at Ft. Hood, Texas.  We seem also to be beset by an unending string of natural calamities – floods, fires, earthquakes, typhoons -- back to back to back and back. 

Because of this long parade of calamity upon calamity, disaster upon disaster, those whose chosen preoccupation is predicting the end of the world have been enjoying a field day. The same folk who grimly forecast thermonuclear holocaust in the 1960’s, human genocide from AIDS in the 1980’s, and global technological meltdown at the dawning of “Y2K” are once more in the limelight.  The Bible is once again being employed as the weapon of choice by those who relish the thought of our world torn to ribbons and incinerated by an angry God.  Each hurricane is a portent of God’s wrath.  Every earthquake is a sure sign of the end times.  H1N1 flu is the latest to be assigned prophetic significance – to the seers of doom and gloom it’s a major indicator of the soon-to-be-unleashed fury of God’s Holy Spirit.

At the risk of coming across to some of you as a soft-headed liberal, I’m going to stand squarely against this sort of quasi-Biblical alarmism.  Sorry, but as a pastor I’ve already heard these same predictions hashed and re-hashed too many times in the soon to be four decades I’ve been serving the Lord.  I can still recall how Henry Kissinger was widely identified as the anti-Christ in the 1970’s, when the non-longer-existent Soviet Union was both Gog and Magog, and that the long-superseded European Common Market was the terrible ten-nation confederacy predicted in Revelation. I dutifully read the book “88 Reasons Why the World Will End in 1988.”  I was castigated at my Odessa, Texas church by zealots who despaired at my failure to set an example for the congregation by stockpiling food and weapons for my family -- in anticipation of the world’s return to the Stone Age on January 1, 2000.

Sorry, folks, but I’m not interested in being fooled again.  And frankly, the Jesus I believe in doesn’t fit the profile of what the doomsayers are peddling.  My Bible says God loves the world and wants, despite its flaws, to redeem it.  It’s been a tough year, yes. But our Lord hasn’t given up on us as yet – and He never will.

John the Apostle, who is the human author -- at God’s inspiration -- of five New Testament books, is usually considered the “expert” on the issue of the “end of the world.”  John wrote the Apocalypse, or the Book of Revelation.  So he’s the “go-to guy” for those who try to proclaim calamity.  But John also wrote a version of the gospel, and it’s to that Gospel that I would have us turn on this, the Sunday prior to Christmas -- as we draw toward the end of a singularly tough year.

John 1 is an account of the birth of Jesus.  It’s really a Christmas story.  But it’s a very different version of the Christmas narrative than either Luke or Matthew tell. Both Luke and Matthew focus on what happened on earth when Jesus came.  But John tells us what happened before, during, and as a result of Jesus’ birth on earth. While Luke and Matthew deal in specifics, John wishes us to view the “big picture.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.”  To inform us of the coming of Jesus, John starts a long time back.  In fact, John starts before time itself began.  
And there, prior even to the creation itself, we find the living Word of God.  That Word – later identified in John 1:17 as Jesus – is over, under, around and through God.  In fact, the Word is ultimately God Himself.  And as the creation begins, the Word becomes the Creator – the self-expression of God.

The Word – God -- Jesus – they’re all one and the same.  Human language and understanding simply fail at this point. We are incapable of comprehending how singular can be plural and plural singular. That’s OK – if we’re still bold enough to ask, God can explain Himself to us in the Kingdom of Heaven.  The bottom line is that God, through His Word Jesus, chose to make the universe and all therein – including us.  And if you circle all the way back to the creation story of Genesis 1, to which John 1 clearly points, you’ll remember that God repeatedly proclaimed His Creation good.  In fact, when He finished creating, Genesis 1:31 says: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”

John 1:4 continues the “coming of Jesus” narrative thus: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” In the living Word-made-flesh of God, referencing John 1:14, was “life, and the life was the light of men.” In Jesus, God-come-down-to-earth, was both life and light.  Throughout his gospel, John identifies Jesus with these two concepts:  Life and light, light and life.

Life obviously comes first – for without life, it is impossible to perceive light.  Jesus came to bring life to humanity – to lift the curse of death which had reigned for millennia as a result of the sin of Adam.  From Adam to Jesus, humans still experienced a measure of life, but a very limited version thereof.  Thirty or forty years for most, seventy or eighty for a few.  And then – nothing.  The end.

Jesus, in John 10:10, foretold what He would soon do for us on the Cross and in the Resurrection.  He said, “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” Sixty years isn’t abundant life.  One hundred years isn’t abundant life, especially if the last ten thereof are endured in pain and infirmity.  Rather, what Jesus is talking about is life without limit.  Life abundant is life in fullness – without sickness or worry or heartache.  Life abundant is life eternal – from now on, and on, and on.

Light is a companion gift of abundant life.  With the coming of Jesus, the darkest recesses of the human soul are illuminated.  Men and women are enabled to see themselves as they really are intended, by their Creator, to be.  We were not pre-destined to be creatures of darkness, fearfully hiding from our own guilt-ridden selves.  Rather, God lovingly formed us in His own image and likeness, placing the brilliant, unmistakable spark of His own divine nature within each and every one of us.  The gracious coming of Jesus restores, to those who believe in Him, that divine “lightness.”  We are restored, renewed, re-made – into sons and daughters of our Creator-Father.  Jesus is born on earth -- that humans might be reborn into the Kingdom of Heaven.

John 1:5 continues the widescreen version of the Christmas story with these words:  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  This is John’s finest statement of the significance of Jesus’ birth on earth.  From the earliest recorded history of our race onward, humanity sensed that there was a continuing spiritual struggle, of cosmic proportions, for control of the universe.  Good and evil – God and Satan – were ever and always at odds.  The inner war within each individual human soul – we’ve all experienced it – was but a tiny example of that mega-conflict.

John boldly proclaims that, with the coming of God’s living Word – Jesus – to earth, this cosmic struggle is ended.  It’s done – once and for all.  And there is no longer any doubt as to the outcome. For it is not, nor was it ever, a contest between giants of equal strength and resources.  God, and God alone, is infinitely superior.  The darkness has not overcome, nor will it ever overcome, the light.  Jesus wins, Satan is defeated.  And all who put their trust in Him will share in His victory – now and for eternity.

Certainly 2009 has been a strange and scary year.  Notwithstanding, the Light of the world has not been extinguished.  Jesus, who came to earth to embody God’s love for us, is still in charge – and yet desires to save us.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

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