The Word Became Flesh

Today is a very special day, because it is the first day of a new Church year.

May I be the first to wish you all a happy New Year.

[A couple of weeks ago Dennis had us singing "Keep Right on to the End of the Road, ...so perhaps today we should sing 'Ald Langs Aye'].

And so our Bible readings today are all to do with 'beginnings'. Our Old Testament lesson was taken from the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, which talks about the beginning of creation. ...And our Gospel reading was taken from the very beginning John's Gospel, which gives us a wonderful introduction to the person and ministry of Jesus Christ.

The beginning of John's Gospel is one of my favourite passages in the Bible. It also happens to be one of the set readings for Christmas Day, ...and as a child I remember feeling a great sense of awe as it was read. I didn't understand what it meant, ...but I knew it was something very special.

I think part of the reason why I knew that it was special was because it was always read by a special person. I've no idea who he was, but he was a very old gentleman, ...and I only remember ever seeing him at Christmas, when he was invited to read these first few verses from John's Gospel. And he read them with such feeling.

"In the beginning was the Word, ...and the Word was with God, ...and the Word was God" ...and so on.

As I said, I didn't understand what it meant... but I knew it was something special.

Now that was all about 20 years ago, ...but during the last week, this passage has become special to me for a completely different reason. You see, during the last few weeks an important question had been going through my mind. ..."How can I simply explain what is the essence of the Christian message?"

You may remember a few weeks ago we read about people coming to Jesus and asking him to summarize the whole of the Old Testament Law into a nutshell. Well in a similar way, I had been wondering "How can I summarize the Good News of the Christian message into a nutshell?" ...and last week, when I read again the beginning of John's Gospel, I realized that that was what I was reading ...the Christian message in a nutshell. ...And so that is what I would like to talk about this morning.

These first few verses at the beginning off John's Gospel have been compared with an overture to an opera.

I know very little about opera myself, but I understand that during the overture, (at the beginning of the performance), the audience gets a brief taste of the great musical themes that will be developed as the story unfolds.

Well that's what's happening at the beginning of John's Gospel, we are being given a brief taste of the great themes that will be developed in the rest of the book. Themes like:

- Jesus being the light of the World, shining in the darkness;

- Jesus being rejected by those who should have known better;

- the need for everyone to be born from above.

These are all mentioned in these first few verses, and then further developed as the story about Jesus unfolds.

But where do we start in telling the story of Jesus?

Have you ever had tried writing a letter to someone, ...and you've got something very exciting to tell them. And you pick up your pen, and a blank piece of paper, and then you stare at it, thinking "Where do I start?"

Well the four gospel writers all tell us that Jesus' public ministry began with the work of John the Baptist, who prepared the ground for him. But they also recognise that the real story started a long time before that.

Mark's Gospel, (which was probably the first to be written), starts by reminding us that hundreds of years earlier, God prophet had foretold the coming of John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way for someone even more special.

Matthew and Luke, (who probably wrote their gospels a little later), then point out that the story really began long before that. Matthew begins the story with Abraham, and Luke with Adam.

But John recognises that if you are going to start at the very beginning of the story, you have to go even further back than that. In fact, you have to go back to the very beginning of time.

Before the universe existed, ...God existed. But God the Father was not alone... the was someone else... someone who John calls "The Word". He says:

"In the beginning was the Word, ...and the Word was with God, ...and the Word was God."

What a wonderful name... "The Word"!

We sometimes give people nicknames that try to capture something that is exceptional about them. For example:

- we called Margaret Thatcher 'The Iron Lady';

- and there's an enormous American Football player who is called 'The Refrigerator'.

Names like this can tell us a lot about someone, ...and I think this person was called 'The Word', because he was the one through whom God spoke when he created the universe.

Remember how God created things ...He simply spoke the word.

"God said, 'Let there be light', ...and there was light."

"God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation...', ...[and] the land produced vegetation".

...And so on.

And now John tells us that God did all this through a person called 'The Word'. In fact, 'The Word' was part of God himself, ...and John says:

"All things were made through him... In him was life...".

But then, in verse 14, we come to the greatest wonder of all.

"...the Word became a human being, ...and lived among us."

It's this which separates Christianity from the other major religions of the world. In Islam and many other religions, God is God, ...and people are human, ...and the two are completely separate. But Christians believe that God ...the eternal Word ...became a human being ...and was born as Jesus of Nazareth.

God came and lived among us. Or as it is expressed in the original language of the Bible, God came and pitched his tent among us.

And why did he come to live among us? ...Well, John gives us two reasons ...to bring light ...and to bring life.

You remember back in Genesis when God said "Let there be light", we are told that God separated the light from the darkness. But history has shown us that humanity has consistently chosen to stay in the darkness. Humanity has rebelled against God, ..we have gone our own way instead of going God's way, ...and we have done many things that we are ashamed of. And as a result, humanity is groping around in darkness. The blind are leading the blind. And so Jesus came to switch the light on. Jesus said

"I am the light of the world, ...whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness." (Jn. 8.12)

And that brings us to the second reason why Jesus came to live among us. He came to bring us life. Because humanity has chosen to live in darkness, we have become spiritually dead.

We are very good at killing plants in our house. We sometimes buy a perfectly heathy plant, and within a few weeks it will be completely dead. And I presume one of the reasons is that we put the plant where we think it will look nice, like in the corner of a room, and after it has died we notice the little label which says that it likes bright sunlight. But if you put any plant in darkness, the leaves will soon turn yellow, and the plant will die.

And that's the same with us. Humanity has chosen to live in the darkness, and we have become spiritually dead. So Jesus came to bring us light and life. As we read in verse 4...

"In him was life, and the life was the light of men."

So far so good, ...but then we mood of the overture changes. And we taste the theme of tragedy. We read that:

"He was in the world, and though God made the world through him, yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own people, but his own people did not receive him."

Have you ever given something valuable to someone, but the person you gave it to didn't realize how much it was worth?

A friend of mine, called George, told me that when he got married, someone gave him a small icon as a wedding present. It was only about this big, (show), and it had a picture of Christ on it. Sometime later, George showed it to someone who was an expert in this field, and was amazed to discover that it was extremely valuable.

George immediately assumed his friend couldn't have know its true value, and so he decided to return the gift. But his friend was very upset at this. His friend said to George, "Of course I knew how valuable it was, ...but when you love someone you give them the best."

Jesus loved us so much, that he gave us the gift of himself. He came to bring us the gift of life. Yet the tragedy is that most people failed to recognise the value of the gift, and they refused to receive him. Jesus said:

"...the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it." (Mt. 7.13-14 GNB)

And we find the same thing today. Most people choose to remain in the darkness. They refuse to receive the light of Christ, ...and they reject his gift of life.

But that's not the whole story. A few people did receive him, ...and we read in verse 12 that:

"...to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become the children of God".

Jesus gives us the power to become God's children. It's a free gift, ...if only we are willing to receive him. ...And it's is a supernatural act of God, in which we are born of God.

Once again, here we are only given the briefest taste of a major theme which is developed in the remainder of the Gospel. In chapter 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless we are born of the Spirit of God, we cannot enter his kingdom.

As I draw now to close, I just want us to briefly consider how all this affects us.

Well for a start, I think it knocks on the head two widely-held views of how we receive eternal life.

Many people in Britain think that they will get to heaven by being good.

They think at the final judgement God will open the books, ...and he will weight the good things they have done against the bad things. ...And if the scales tip the right way, they will receive eternal life.

That's what many people think, ...but it's not what the Bible says.

Other people think that they will get to heaven by being religious.

They think that if they come to church every week, God will be pleased with them, and they will receive eternal life.

That's what some people think, ...but its not what the Bible says.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to live good lives, or that we shouldn't come to church. Of course we should! ...for many reasons which I haven't got time to mention. But what I am saying, is that we shouldn't put our trust in these things to get us to heaven.

There is only one way to receive eternal life, ...and that is to receive Jesus, and in so doing, to become a child of God.

The most important question in the world is this:

HAVE YOU RECEIVED JESUS?

(Pause)

If you are unsure as to whether you have received Jesus, ...can I strongly encourage you to make sure.

One step in that direction would be to ask me for a free copy of this booklet.

It's called "Why Jesus?", ...and it simply describes one way in which we can make sure that we have received Jesus, and his gift of eternal life.

If you would like a copy, just let me know when you leave church today, ...or at any other time.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for sending us Jesus, ...who is the light of the world, and the source of life.

Help us to receive Him, ...and in so doing, to receive your gift of eternal life.

In Jesus name. Amen.