What Child Is This?

John 1:1-14

My absolute favorite Christmas show is A Charlie Brown Christmas. And my absolute favorite part of that show is when Charlie Brown gets frustrated with how the kids are treating Christmas and in an almost primal scream asks “Doesn’t anyone here know what Christmas is all about?” Then Linus goes into his recitation of the Christmas story from Luke, complete with dramatic lighting, music, and a children’s choir.

When he’s finished, everything about the way the kids celebrate Christmas changes.

I’m expecting similar results here today. (GRIN)

The text I chose was given to John by the Holy Spirit and is quite different than Matthew or Luke’s versions of what Christmas is all about. You remember John, right? He likes things simple. He’s the one that gave us our favorite Bible verse – or at least our favorite when it comes to memorization. John 6:35 “Jesus wept.” I like it when they keep it short and to the point, don’t you?

I was emailed a while back a condensed version of the entire Bible – the Bible in 50 words.

God made, Adam bit, Noah arked, Abraham split, Joseph ruled, Jacob fooled, bush talked, Moses balked, Pharaoh plagued, people walked, sea divided, tablets guided, promise landed, Saul freaked, David peeked, prophets warned, Jesus born, God walked, love talked, anger crucified, hope died, Love rose, Spirit flamed, Word spread, God
remained.

I know, I know – the Pharoah plagued is a bit lame, but I especially like the Saul freaked and David peeked part.

We’re always trying to take what God does and try and fit it into a package we can handle. Trying to reduce His greatness, to slim down His omnipotence, to limit His foreknowledge and make it into something we have down cold.

We like it simple.

Okay, so here we are at John 1.

God has once again met us at the very point of our need. He’s not only going to make it simple for us, he’s going to retrace His steps so we can see how we got to Christmas. Somewhere along the way this week I realized what he had done was the equivalent of someone speaking very slowly to a person who didn’t speak our language.

That doesn’t ever seem to work on TV.

But here God is using visual aids – things we know and can get a grip on. They come a little bit later in the text, so hang with me here.

In the beginning the Word already existed.

How does the Bible begin? “In the beginning, God…

Here John is back at ABC, square one, version 1, God 1.0. When this occurs we have no idea. The idea John is trying to help us with is that the Word is before time. You can put any sort of handle you want on that thought as long as it ends up being pre-existent to wherever you thought was the beginning.

But I thought we were here today learning about Jesus? We are. The word John uses there translated “Word” for us, is the Greek word logos. Oh, that clears it all up.

Think with me here. No, I just wanted a break. Wow, that’s great. I’ll make a mental note to use that again when I get stuck. Okay, now really, think with me. I’m thinking of a word. Any ideas? No, actually I was thinking of bacteria – not sure why. See if I’m going to ask you to think about a word with me, I need to give you not just that word, but an explanation of what it means. In a sense, that’s what the rest of this passage does.

John has already told us that the “Word” existed before the beginning. The next thing he tells us is that the “Word” was with God. And then he adds to that “the Word was God”. And speaking slowly to us, because we don’t have the spiritual language skills of angels, he says “He existed in the beginning with God.”

This “Word” or logos was a concept to the Greeks. They were fixated on what made the universe tick. They had their gods, but when they really wanted to consider the meaning of life and the reason everything existed, they called it the “logos”.

Sounds like God to me. But if John wanted to explain God to Greeks, he couldn’t begin with that word. So the Holy Spirit led him to use “Word”. Everyone would understand that on some level, but the real deep thinkers would be taken real deep.

And that same Holy Spirit knew that you and I would be here today reading this. For us, he led us to the first thing we know about Jesus – about who this baby is - He is God.

I guess in a lot of ways, that’s where the fusses we get into over Christmas today really have their root. In many ways “Christmas” or “that “C” word as I heard one commentator refer to it, divides people simply because of Jesus’ claim, backed up by this Scripture and many many others – that he is God.

I read earlier in the week that certain department store chains were not calling Christmas trees, Christmas trees – instead referring to them as Holiday trees. Is there another Holiday we use those for that I don’t know about? Sounds silly, but at the root is a refusal to allow any reminder that Jesus is God.

The next simple fact that John clues us in on is that Jesus, the Word, God, is also the Creator of the Universe.

3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,[a]
and his life brought light to everyone.

So Jesus is God the Creator, who brings everything to be. Once again John repeats Himself for emphasis. “created everything through him, and nothing was created except through Him.” And he goes farther. Not content to limit Jesus to the creation of stars, nebula, galaxies and planets, he points to Jesus as the giver of all life.

I’m a science geek. I love to read about the latest advances in medicine, chemistry, physics and the like. And I’m a wee bit amused at those who seem to think that there’s a disconnect between being a follower of Jesus Christ and having a brain. Ok, maybe I exaggerate. Some think we have a brain, but as followers of Jesus, we are insane. No, that wasn’t better either. Well, anyway, some of them seem to want to talk to us reeeeeaaaalll slooooooowww.

But here’s the thing. In this are, it really boils down to two choices. You can believe that the universe happened by accident, a series of cosmic coincidences almost to infinity, or you can at least admit the possibility of a designer – a creator if you will.

Friends, that job is filled in Jesus. He is the bringer of life, and light.

See I told you that John was going to use some visual aids we could all understand. We all understand life. When we have it there are possibilities galore. Even on our worst days we still have… a day. Without life, we aren’t.

But light – light is a revealer. Light gives you the ability to see, to perceive, to know. And here in John 1, John says that Jesus is the light who brings the true revelation of what God is, to us.

And, oh I love this – that even when things get tough, even when it seems like things are dark, that there’s no hope or even a possibility of hope – Jesus wins.

5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.

It’s a cold and cruel world we live in. But it will never be without hope.

So John’s told us that this baby is God, He is Creator, He is the Purest Revelation – the Light. But the best is yet to come.

Jesus is the Savior

6 God sent a man, John the Baptist,[c] 7 to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

Jesus had an advance party on his earth adventure. John the Baptist. I like to think of him as Jesus’ “away team” like on the old Star Trek tv show, where the crew would send some people down to a planet to check it out. You could almost always count on a couple of the security team guys, the ones wearing red, to kick the bucket while they were there. I always wondered why they wore red, because those were always the ones who died. Personally, I would have still gone, but I would have changed shirts to something less obvious. But then again John the Baptist didn’t. His away team outfit was a bit unusual as was his job.

John was to tell people that God had sent Messiah – the revelation of God. Jesus was that revelation – that light. And Jesus was coming to His own people, the Jews.

I have always wondered what it was like to have created the world and then come down and live on it. How Jesus must have felt knowing that His creation of the trees – that one would be used as His cross. But when he came to His creations – the people of Israel, they didn’t see Him as God at all. They rejected Him and His message and eventually were so angry at what He and that message said that they killed Him to shut Him up.

But there were some who believed then. The disciples, some women, some others. And to them, and to all of us who have followed them, He gave the right no one but God could give – the right to inherit eternal life – to be made right with God. John says that those people have been reborn.

And again, John slows down and tells us what that means. It’s not a physical act. Old Nicodemas, as smart as he was went there a little later on, so puzzled he wanted Jesus to explain how someone could go back into the womb. It’s not physical, it’s spiritual.

And it’s not our idea – we never would have thought of it.. We never could make it happen. There’s nothing we can do to earn forgiveness from God – nothing. I’m not going to have to wait for someone to pray me out of purgatory so I can leave that bus stop on the way to heaven when I die. Salvation isn’t a human act – it’s a God act.

Someone told me one time that we had to do our part. That’s true of course. We have to be sinners without any hope of forgiveness. Ok, check. Got that done. John gives us in one very clear sentence, what we need to do to be saved, to become children of God.

12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

So two words – believed, and accepted and one object – Him (Jesus)

John uses the word “believe” or “believed” over 100 times in his gospel. It never in any single instance means dry dusty knowledge like “I believe red bricks are good.” Nor does it mean something frivolous like “I believe Dairy Queen Blizzards are the twelfth wonder of the world.” When he uses the word it means to stake your life upon it – to give it your all – everything you have – and never look back.

So a person that wants to follow Jesus, who wants to be made right with God and follow God’s plan and pattern for their life must believe in the Word that Jesus left us and in Him as explained in that Word. There’s no expression of Jesus no true expression of Him that isn’t contained in or explained by this book – the Bible. So a Buddhist Jesus, or a Mormon Jesus, or a Karmic Jesus won’t work – can’t be, because they are outside the light of God’s revelation in and through His Word.

Jesus – God of very God. Jesus – Creator of everything that was made. Jesus giver of Life, revealer of Light. And yes, Jesus, born of a virgin.

Can you accept that? In this context the word translated accept doesn’t just mean nod your head. It means pledge your allegiance to. To receive as who he says he is and act accordingly. You receive Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit living within you. You receive Jesus, you place yourself under His authority and pledge yourself to do whatever he calls for you to do. You receive Jesus and he becomes your master and you become his bondservant.

John says that people who do that receive the right or the authority to change their family name. They become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Once they were enemies of God, but now they have become part of God’s family.

I love the way Eugene Peterson translates the last verse we’ll look at today.

14The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

Jesus came into this world the same way we all did. He grew up as any other little boy in his era would have. But he was different in two very important ways. First, he never sinned. That’s important because if he had the second way couldn’t have been true. “He was God.”

When Jesus moved into our hood, or pitched his tent among us, he was just doing what any other short term visitor would do. The people who used tents back then were transients – soldiers, sojourners, and shepherds. Tents were useful because they could be moved quickly, but they weren’t very sturdy. Jesus was fully God, but took on human flesh and blood like any other man. He was fully God and fully man. He gave 200%

John says that everyone who saw Jesus said that he reminded them of someone. I know when I go back to Macon, at times I will run into someone and they’ll tell me that I resemble my father. I generally thank them and then walk away thinking, “man I’m getting old”. But I genuinely appreciate what they mean.

John has that sense in what he writes when he says

He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

Don’t you wonder what it must have been like to know Jesus as the apostles did? To see Him as He performed His miracles, to listen to Him speak, to see His great power as He raised Lazarus or even after the resurrection?

Well, John gives us a snapshot here when he says that Jesus was full of unfailing love and faithfulness – grace and truth. Who wouldn’t want a friend like that? Someone who knows you intimately – as you really are – but who loves you anyway – even loves you for exactly who you are!

That would be glorious! That would be like knowing and loving God Himself. John says, we have seen that in the flesh – seen Him! He is unique – one of a kind – and everything the Word said He would be. And the word he uses doesn’t mean he glanced at Jesus, it carries the idea that John and the disciples couldn’t stop looking at Him and seeing God.

He is Jesus, come to save His people from their sins.

I wonder, do you know Him today?

Do you need someone to love you just as you are? Jesus’ love is unfailing.

Do you need someone who will never leave you, never forsake you, never pretend you aren’t there, never fail to answer your cries?

Jesus is full of faithfulness.

You will never truly understand Christmas until you look God the Father in His face and tell Him thank you for sending your Son for me, a sinner lost and burdened with a sin debt that could never be repaid. Have you received Jesus? Have you believed he is everything the Bible says He is and has done everything the Bible said He must do to give you new life and new hope with God?

What Child Is this? He is our Hope. He is our Life. He is our Light. He is Jesus.