(12/19/2010) This week’s “Sunday Sermon” focuses on Jesus’ youngest disciple’s perspective on the Nativity.
John was the youngest of Jesus’ 12 disciples, and lived the longest. Sometime 25 – 55 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, John wrote the last of the four Biblical “Gospels.”
Early “church fathers” of the second century felt that “John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain [in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke]. . . composed a spiritual gospel.”
That certainly is the case when it comes to the story of Christmas. John gives us none of the details of Jesus birth that are so familiar in Luke’s tale of the inn & the shepherds in Bethlehem & Matthew’s account of the wise men & flight to Egypt.
While Mark, typical of his “cut to the chase” style, skips Jesus birth entirely, John, the self-described “disciple whom Jesus loved,” (John 20:2) gives us the timeless spiritual perspective of what happened from God’s perspective that first Christmas night:
John 1:1-18 (New International Version, ©2010)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, 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 Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
For the Christian, that’s what Christmas is all about:
“Emmanuel, God with us.” (Isaiah 7:14)
God demonstrating His love for humanity, showing us first hand what He really is like, demonstrating in the flesh what He intends us to be like, and 33 years later, paying the ultimate price to tear down the walls we all build between His gracious love and our stubborn selves.
There’s a worship song, Emmanuel, by Bob McGee that I first heard back in the 70′s that seems to sum all this up so well:
Emmanuel, Emmanuel,
His name is called
Emmanuel.
God with us,
Revealed in us,
His name is called
Emmanuel.Emmanuel, Emmanuel,
Your name is called
Emmanuel
God with us
Revealed in us,
Your name is called
Emmanuel.
The melody is beautifully played on a keyboard in one video:
Mercy Me has a newer song that also expresses the joy of Emmanuel, of God with us:
Perhaps John summed it all up best in his most famous verse, excerpted from a longer, secret discussion Jesus had with a Jewish religious leader of his day:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. . . (from John 3, NIV)
God’s abiding love for humanity, the loving creator God visiting his creation to walk among us, teach us, and give His life for us. . . that’s the “Good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people that Christians celebrate every December.
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