Each week brings its load of “junk mail”. In the early schooling of our children, we found it a useful source of pictures for cutting out. Nowadays we just give it a quick scan in case there’s something we think we might need.
Many years ago I attended a seminar in
That is a major (and expensive task) when you realise that on average people only use about two or three thousand words – even with a university education the total will still fall short of 10,000! So the advertiser is doing the educational task of teaching us new words and giving them positive associations – increasing our vocabulary!
Twelve years ago on the
Would that be going too far? We didn’t regard our leaflets as “junk mail”,
but could our little card just cause a negative response? How do we get past
the attitude that is happy enough to have Christmas but which regards what God
has said and done as “junk”?
There really is a God who is Creator and Lord of all. He is Love and wants us to know him. He has been speaking – are we listening?
John begins his gospel by stating, “Before the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God, and he was the same as God.” J.B. Phillips put it, “At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God, and was God, and he existed with God from the beginning.” This personal Expression of God – his Word – is described as pre-existent, personal, divine, powerful and creative.
The Bible translator has a difficulty. We assume that a word in one language will correspond exactly with another word in a second language – all the translator has to do is to look up his dictionary and he will know which word to put. But this is complicated because the grammars of the two languages – grammar is how the people think – are different, and because a word in one language has a whole range of meanings and associations, only one of which is similar to the word in the second language.
Take the Hebrew word, dabhar, for example. It occurs over 1400 times in the Old Testament. Mostly it can simply be translated “word” – especially the word of the Lord. But it is also used to refer to a matter of interest or concern, or something, or a happening. Now the major translation of the Old Testament into Greek, the Septuagint (about 260BC) mostly uses a Greek word, logos, which also means “word”. But besides speech, the Greek also includes the idea of reason, cause, principle of working…
Now back in John 1 we read, “In the beginning was the Logos…” We need to get the feel of a bigger cluster of associations than we usually have – the event, the reason, the principle of working – this Logos who was personal, powerful and eternally part of God himself.
The opening words take us back to the beginning of Genesis. Here God expressed himself in the creation of the universe. By his word (“And God said…”) all things came to be. It is in his Word that they continue to exist and have meaning.
Today we study the sciences of geology, biology, zoology, physiology… By these sciences we study and endeavour to understand the logos – the reasons and laws behind rocks, life, etc.
John was, in fact, making the incredible statement that what we have called the “natural laws” are part of God’s self-expression. One prominent geologist I knew used to describe his work as “thinking God’s thoughts after him”. God has brought light out of darkness, order out of chaos – the stamp of God’s mind is here. And the human race has been created to grasp this order and to respond to the Presence of God. That is part of what it means for us to be “in the image of God.”
Yet the tragedy of the human race is that we haven’t listened to God speaking.
John writes, “The Word was in the world, and though God made the world through him, yet the world did not recognise him.”
God has expressed himself in the very orderliness of creation. The Psalmist wrote, “How clearly the sky reveals God’s glory! How plainly it shows what he has done!” (19.1). With every discovery of this scientific age we ought to marvel all the more at the mind of God expressed in creation.
Writing to the Romans, Paul said, “Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made” (1.20). But we today, through our material values, continue to make the same gross error that the pagans of Paul’s day expressed through their idolatry – “they exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself…” (v. 25).
Our human reason is distorted through sin. So God hasn’t left it to our
human reason to discover his presence. He chose out
Now the Word of God comes to his own home and his own people – through his special messengers such as Moses and the Old Testament prophets. But even here it is the same tragic story – “He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.” How they complained against Moses! How they ill-treated the prophets and continued on their own ways! Much of the Old Testament was written because “he came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.”
Yet there were those in Old Testament times who did receive the Word – we think of well-known leaders like Noah, Abraham, Moses, David… But there were many ordinary unnamed people as well. To all such people, back in Old Testament times, God, in his loving purpose, gave the right to become his children.
Now we come to verse 14 – “The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us.”
Too often we have missed the grandeur of this thought by reading it back into verse 1. We need to see God expressing himself – God’s personal and creative Word – in the creation, able to be perceived in the recognisable order of things, in the Old Testament Scriptures – and now in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh! We need to get the flow of the divine action!
That’s what we celebrate at Christmas time – the incarnation, the Word-become-flesh!
And there’s a beautiful expression here – “lived among us” is literally “pitched
his tent among us”. A tent is a dwelling for people on the move. The Israelites
had lived in tents when they were coming from
And why would God want to speak in human history – in the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son? Had the human race been receiving all these parts of God’s revelation of himself over many centuries and now all that was needed was a personal visit? Was that it? They had grasped it all so far – now for the final revelation?
Not at all! He came, not to enlighten our minds with more factual information about his existence, but to deliver us from the rebelliousness – the sin – that has so consistently refused to recognise his presence and revelation in all the other ways. He didn’t come to give us a set of rules to live by – he had already done this through Moses. He came to rescue us – humanity who had turned aside from those rules – to forgive us and renew us. He came “full of grace and truth.”
God has been sending his message to the human race since the beginning of time, but we have regarded his Word as so much “junk mail”. The big question is, “How are we going to respond to the Word of God this time?”
We have arrogantly claimed all the credit for the scientific discoveries which are really only what we have found about the logos of God’s creation. We think it shows how very smart we are – and fail to give glory to God the Creator.
But what are we going to do, now that the Logos has become a human being and lived as part of our human history?
The leaders of the day thought it would be a good time to get rid of him once and for all. They didn’t need any additional “Word of the Lord”, thank you very much! They had the Scriptures, the sacrificial rituals, the traditions… – all under their control! So they schemed to eliminate him – to have him nailed to a Roman cross.
Fellow-up-there, can’t you see our message – NO JUNK MAIL? We don’t want any more junk mail. You send us junk mail and we’ll put it in the bin. Just stop sending it, do you hear?
There’s one thing about a garbage system. For a week you pop things in. Then, one morning (for us it’s Tuesday) the MAMS truck comes and empties the bin and we never see our rubbish again – and we don’t want to see it again, either! It’s final! How would you react if, three days later, a large bag with an assortment of various odds and ends appeared on your front door-step with a note, “Did you mean to throw these out?”?
Their scheme to have Jesus executed worked, but it didn’t eliminate him! They could only do it because it was also part of God’s plan to accept the death of Jesus as the final and complete payment due for our sins. Our ultimate human sin became the sin-offering! God is saying that he still loves us. He wants to forgive us and receive us back into his family – where he has always meant us to be!
So his promise, first given to Old Testament believers, comes to us – “Some did receive him and believe in him; so he gave them the right to become God’s children.”
What are we going to do with the Word-become-flesh? He’s not junk mail! However we try to get rid of him or ignore him, he’s still there, waiting for our response!
We need to receive him – welcome him – believe in him! We can’t celebrate Christmas or Easter without him! We can’t make sense of our own lives without him!
The early Christians, in the days of persecution and danger, used a little secret sign so they could safely identify one another. It has come into use again in recent times – the sign of the fish. Spelt out in the Greek language, “fish” is ichthus which was a kind of mnemonic.
I Iēsous
Ch Christos
Th Theou
hU hUios
Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.
Who is Jesus? He’s not just another great man. He’s the Son of God who came into our human life and history – became a man. Who is Jesus? He’s my Saviour. He died for my sin. I have put my trust in him. Have you?
© Peter J. Blackburn, Halifax and
Ingham, 14 December 2008
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible
Society, 1984.
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