“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood/overcome it.”
I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family. Since both my mom and dad had four sisters, growing up I was the only kid receiving presents from eight aunts. I received an obscene number of Christmas presents as a child. My dad’s parents living room, which was maybe 2/3rd the size of the upper portion of this stage was consistently half-full of presents year after year and my name was on a plurality of those name tags. Christmas was magical for me as a child. I would drink way too much Christmas punch, eat way too many holiday cookies, and best of all I had to constantly open presents so that the party could keep going.
Now do you think that the other 364 days of the year were like that for me? Of course not. That’s what made Christmas special. Christmas looked nothing like March 1 or June 1. It was like an alternative reality of toys, hugs, and sugar. Now I wish every other day was like Christmas but that wasn’t reality.
What’s interesting is that from a divine perspective, Christmas was actually quite similar to every other day of human history. Yes, there was something startling unique about the incarnation as we’ve been studying this Advent, but from another perspective Christmas is the same God doing to same sorts of deeds with people responding exactly the same way. That’s the claim of this sermon: Christmas involves the same God doing the same sorts of deeds and people tending to respond the same way. In our Advent study we are focusing on the uniqueness of Christmas and the virgin birth. In this sermon we are looking at the other side of the tension.
We will study this in two points. First: the divine word. Second: life and light. We see the divine word in verses 1-3. We see life and light in verses 4-5.
First: the divine word. This prologue of the gospel of John we are studying tells you in brief what the entire gospel of John tells you at length. The first verse is what controls it all; “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” CK Barrett, who wrote one of the most comprehensive commentaries on the gospel of John explains, “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.” As you read about Jesus meeting the woman at the well in the gospel of John, you are to be struck by the novelty of this woman meeting God without knowing it, and you are to be struck by the fact that this same God was, is, and will be finding people every day. As you read about Jesus calming the raging sea in the gospel of John, you are to be struck by the uniqueness of that moment and you are also to be struck by the fact that every sea that has ever been calmed was calmed by this same God.
In some ways these first verses of John function the same way as the famous Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercials of the 80’s and 90’s, “taste them again for the first time.” The idea behind the campaign was that Corn Flakes had become so ordinary that people had begun to think of them as boring. What was needed was to taste them against if you were tasting them for the first time; they really are delicious. The gospel gives you the opportunity to taste God again in Jesus as if you were tasting him for the first time.
That’s how Christmas is just like any other day God’s world. It is like any other day because Jesus is the same God. He is called God’s word, “in the beginning was the word.” As the Old Testament makes clear God created by His word, reveals Himself by His word, and saves His people by His word. His creation tells you something about Him just as your child’s drawing tell you something precious about your child. His self-revelation tells you something about Him just as an acquaintance opening up creates the opportunity for genuine friendship. His salvation of His people tells you something about Him just as the kindest deed your father ever did for you tells you something about him. By calling Jesus “the word,” John was calling Jesus that self-revelation, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The rest of the gospel spells out that revelation. It shows you what the God of creation acts like in friendship. It shows what the God of creation acts like when betrayed. It shows you what the God of creation acts like when misunderstood. It shows you what the God of creation acts like when opposed.
It also shows you how God treats God. That’s part of the phrase, “the Word was with God.” The gospel of John shows you how God the Father cherishes God the Son. It shows you how the Son trusts the Father and the Father trusts the Son. It shows you how God treats God. It shows you the love of God.
Now if you want to know God, Christmas is great news because it opens the door to this totally new way of knowing God while still knowing the same God. For others, it isn’t great news. Jesus told the Pharisees that it was clear that they didn’t know God at all because they didn’t want anything to do with Jesus. It seems religion can easily become the best way to seemingly keep God at bay. It can easily become the equivalent of cleaning your room so that your divine parent leaves you alone.
So with Jesus we have the same God revealed in a new way. He is revealed doing the same deed in a new way. That’s why John begins with creation; verse 2, “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” The Word created everything and now the Word was going to re-create everything starting with humanity. That’s what’s going on in this gospel. That’s why it prioritizes the new birth, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” That’s why it ends with the Son breathing on his disciples just as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam.
Genesis is the creation story. The gospel is the re-creation story. The question for you is, “have I been re-created?” God breathed life into Adam. Has Jesus breathed new life into you? You can know. You can know by whether or not you believe in Jesus because, “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” The author of this gospel, John, knew that he was born of God. He wrote this so that you could be born of God and know it. That’s his purpose statement, “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
If you have been born of God, you know that this Jesus is life and he is light. That’s our second point because that’s where John turns his attention to next: life and light. Life and light show up in any number of religions. Life is positively compared with death and light is positively compared with darkness. Now John actually knew where life and light were to be found because he had lived with the source for three years; verse 4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
Jesus is the source of life. This is why you see him resurrect Lazarus. This is why you see Jesus himself resurrect from the dead. As Jesus said, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” Throughout John you see Jesus giving life. He restores mangled bodies. He restores disturbed minds. He heals shamed souls. If you recognize that very little of your so-called life has anything to do with true life, you would do well to come to Jesus. With good reason he said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
This life Jesus offers is the only hope of humanity; it is our light; verse 4, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Try to fill in that blank with anything else you can imagine and you see how laughable it is. “In money is life, and that life is the light of men.” “In sports is life, and that life is the light of men.” “In a job well done is life and that life is the light of men.” Those sound preposterous. Jesus doesn’t sound preposterous even though he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” You know that if you follow him and no longer walk in darkness but have the light of life.
Now when John wrote that Jesus offered light, he still had creation in mind. He still had the beginning in mind, “in the beginning was the Word.” He had Genesis 1:2-3 in mind, ‘Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.’
“Let there be light,” was creation. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men,” is re-creation. However, at creation the darkness into which the light came was simply absence. The darkness into which Jesus came wasn’t simply absence. It was active evil. That’s verse 5, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
You see the darkness at work throughout the gospel of John. You see it at work in the opposition of the Pharisees. You see it at work in the blindness of the crowds. You see it work in the ignorance of the authorities.
It was at work rejecting Jesus because it didn’t understand Jesus. It wasn’t for lack of intelligence. The people who failed to understand Jesus were some of the most intelligent people of that region. The problem was that they were in darkness. John later explained how the people in darkness responded to Jesus, the light. “This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” That describes a good many people, and you need to ask yourself if that describes you.
The darkness doesn’t understand the light, and it also failed to overcome the light. The Greek word translated here as “understood” can also be translated as “overcome.” “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” Now John was a very poetic writer so with him it’s very likely that he meant both. He meant the darkness never understood the light and the darkness could never overcome the light because his gospel gives examples of both. The Pharisees didn’t understand or overcome Jesus. The crowds didn’t understand or overcome Jesus. The Romans didn’t understand or overcome Jesus. “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood/overcome it.”
That is also the way it has always been and is now. Do you think that the darkness understands the light any better in 2020 than it did that first Christmas or than it did during the earthly ministry of Jesus? Now we still have highly intelligent people. We have highly intelligent people in our universities, media, businesses, and government. By and large though they are trying to overcome the light. They are in the darkness and you see that because as Calvin puts it, “they do not come to God, and do not even approach to him; so that all their understanding is nothing else than mere vanity.” The idea that God should be or even could be central to anything let alone everything sounds like nonsense to our culture because, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood/overcome it.”
Now the good news is that this darkness cannot overcome it. The religious and political authorities were not able to silence Jesus then. They will not be able to silence him now. The darkness wasn’t able to overcome the light at the cross. It won’t be able to overcome the light in 2020. The only hope the true church has is verse 5, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” That hope isn’t you. That hope isn’t this or that president. That hope isn’t this or that pastor. It is Jesus.
If you do know him, that makes Christmas a glorious day not because it’s so different from every other day of human history but because it is so like every other day of human history—it is the same God doing the same sorts of deeds. This is what God is like. He comes near. He brings life. He brings light. That’s Christmas. That’s every day for those who know Jesus. The question is, “how do you respond to him?” That’s how respond to God. Amen.