| January 6, 2008
You are Welcome to Reflect on this Message From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit
If the 4th Gospel were the only one we had, this is all we’d know about Jesus’ birth: before his name was Jesus, it was the Word. John doesn’t bother with a bright star and shepherds like Matthew or angels presiding over a virgin like Luke, just the “logos;” Word. Matthew and Luke begin their gospels with Jesus’ birth. And Mark kicks-off with his baptism. But John waxes philosophical, and takes us all the way back to pre-existence. The Word wasn’t just with God before the dawn of creation, the Word was God. It’s the most eloquent word God ever spoke .
But not everybody gets the message. Some folks are so used to the darkness they’re blinded by the light. So they cover their eyes, preferring the dark they know to the light they don’t know. That’s always been God’s problem – getting us to hear the message and see the light. So God decided he’s had it with stones and scrolls, and set out to try something new: less invisible, but equally indispensable. This time God resorted to body language: “...the Word became flesh and lived among us.” John’s nativity in a nutshell. But before “the Word became flesh,” it was “logos,” because it already existed on creation morn. John’s Christmas is about God’s logos getting translated, into human language we could understand. Call it what you will: the life force of the entire universe was concentrated into one mortal life and nothing was ever the same again.
Not because everybody listened to God this time either, because we still don’t. But that doesn’t take anything away from the “divine eloquence” the world has come to know as Jesus Christ. Heaven married earth and delivered unto us Mary’s child, who favored both parents. And the word was no longer something that had to be spoken or read. Now it has legs, and hands that blessed and a face with a smile on it. “The Word became somebody.”
That’s why the church placed John’s hymn after Matthew and Luke tell their version of the Christmas story. John is hard to hear, partly because it’s poetry, but mostly because it’s mystery. How can we, with human language describe the enfleshment of Almighty God so that it makes sense? How do we wrap words around the Word, who’s beyond all words? John does a pretty good job of it in my opinion.
Wisdom dictates that the closer we get to God, the less we have to say about him. So John talks about light, and glory, and grace, and truth. “In the beginning was the Word...” Words have usages not meanings. For us a word is something said; language; sounds with air behind them. Some have accents but all are interesting. Or else we write them down in books. Our world is flooded with words: on the radio, the TV, the newspaper, telephone, computer. Mailboxes clogged with magazines full of words that pile up. In a national election year? Words. From politicians and their promises. Preachers have to use words to communicate the Word. Parents, teachers, athletes. Words, words, words. Society is saturated with commercials: all of them aimed at getting our attention, to get us to spend money; while we hunt for words of our own to put up as a self-defense.
And it’s OK as long as the words are connected to reality. But very few these days are; or ever have been for that matter. That’s the way it is with words. Consider some: “Snake oil, guarantees you lose weight,” but it doesn’t. Or “I’ll call you,” but they don’t. Or “Send cash and you’ll be healed,” but you aren’t. “I never used steroids to gain an unfair advantage!” No wonder we’re suspicious of words. We always have been haven’t we? So when somebody tells you something, you decide to wait awhile to judge the authenticity, to ensure it matches the claim. Words are a “dime a dozen” but they don’t become truth till you can “back ‘em up.”
And that’s where God’s “Word-made-flesh” is different. In Jesus, words aren’t just a way to communicate, they’re a way of life. And that speaks much louder than words. This Word doesn’t deliver medical lectures to sick people, he heals them. This Word doesn’t hand out recipes to hungry people, he feeds them. This Word doesn’t offer unwanted advice to sinners, he hugs them. This Word doesn’t leave tracts on the bedside tables of the dying, he raises them. I’m talking about divine eloquence! This Word does what he says and says what he does. In Jesus, the Word and the reality behind it are one and the same. There is no slippage. What you hear is what you get.
So if you want to know what God’s like, look at Jesus. If you want to know how God sounds, listen to Jesus. If you want to know how God wants us to act, check-out Jesus. Does that disappoint you? God’s self in human flesh. We like our deities to be a little more majestic than we are. How do we speak of that kind of Word? One of us but beyond us. So unlike all the other words we have to deal with. How do we address ourselves to the one who makes our best words come out like gorilla grunts? But our words don’t matter, because God can make hymns out of our abrasive sounds. God is more interested in the entire grammar of our lives than just the words we speak.
We have this bad habit of looking on “the outward appearance while God looks on the heart.” And it’s not what “goes into a person that defiles us, but what comes from within the human soul” that counts. Whether we are kind or cruel, our hits and misses, whether we tell the truth or shade it. Whether we back up our words with our actions. That’s always been what matters to God.
At the turn of a new year, people like to make a list about the “best” things of the old year. (Or the worst). You know, the best athlete of the year, or best dressed female of the year, the best quote? Bloopers, plenty of those to choose from. Well I’m claiming that our text this morning is the best idea in the past 2000 years. And it’ll still be the best if we should last another thousand. Only God could’ve thought it up. Once more for good measure: in Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord God, creator and sustainer of all the universe, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Divine eloquence like unto which the world has never seen before or since. God is still communicating. Are you listening?
INVITATION TO COMMUNION:
New Year’s Prayer 2008:
You made us for freedom, but we are so tightly wound, boxed in by bad decisions, soft-minded thinking, prisoners of our illusions, expert at self-deception. Our foolish pursuits rob us of wonder, the machines we worship reduce us to a bunch of look-alike consumers. May this hour raise all that is dead in us to new life.
We reflect in this worship on all that is new and changing in our world; for breakthroughs in the field of medicine; the visibility of wrongs too long concealed; for new people to come among us and the prospect of contributing to one another’s growth and the experimentation in the arts, most notably the art of public worship. Help us in these moments of common prayer to forget what we have on, our plans for the day or tomorrow, and momentary afflictions that make us more conscious of self than Thee.
Shape Thy grace around our inmost needs. Lead by Thy providence, those who are down on themselves into experiences where their worth is affirmed, call back those who can recall a day when they loved Thee more, and for those who weep the tears of grief and loss, renew their vision of Easter, so they may realize that death is one of those “all things...that work together for our good.”
We thank Thee for all that keeps us believing that our years have meaning; that the fury of the nations is not the final sound; that “love endures, when tongues have ceased and prophecies have failed.” In the name of the One whose ways are from old and yet whose works are ever new, make us appreciative for the past and open to the future. Amen Back |
