John (Week 1)
John 1:1-36
I took out verse numbers so we would focus less on separating each statement for each verse's meaning and focus more on the unveiling of the complete story. As we go through this, hopefully we will not isolate or freeze text in order to prove our own points, but rather we would take in a more complete unfolding of God's story.
I chose to start with the Gospel of John for one sincere purpose and perhaps one selfish one. Sincerely, I want us to begin with an account of Jesus' life where we can study his ministry and learn directly from his example. Selfishly, perhaps, I chose this one because I believe it has the most powerful beginning of any book. So powerful of a beginning that I have meditated long on this passage and studied deeply on its meaning. So I perhaps come a little more prepared on this specific occasion than I will in the future.
The Word
What has always captivated me about this passage is how it begins. It's almost cryptic. As if the author is writing in some kind of code. His use and reuse of "the Word" was something that took much time for me to understand. In my first readings years ago, I always understood the Word to be the term we use for the Bible. This seemed confusing to me, because the Bible was something I knew was created much later. I thought perhaps God held its contents with himself from the very beginning. I thought the actual book of the Bible was something God knew word for word and his ultimate plan was to give it to humanity. Even still, I thought it was a strange statement to say that the world was created through it. This first part of John remained a mystery to me through many years of my Christian life.
A couple of years ago, I listened to a talk on CD that I picked up from the Emergent Convention in San Diego by Rob Bell. Though he did not address this specific passage, some of his talk gave me quite interesting insight into this cryptic language. First of all John starts out the passage "In the Beginning", a seemingly direct quote from Genesis, connecting God's work through Jesus with God's original work. Secondly, the Word of God has very deep yet familiar meaning in the Jewish language of Jesus' day. Where we as Christians have developed Trinitarian language in describing the attributes of God, I believe Jews have always believed in a communal nature of God.
The Kabbala (though a fairly marginal discipline within the Jewish tradition) believes in the 10 sefirot, which is the ten emanations or "lights" through which God interacts with, and relates to, His world. Even without this tradition we know Old Testament Jews believed in multiple attributes of God. It was the Name of God that was to be revered. The Holy Name of God. This was the mystery of God. A formless mystery. Then there was the Word of God. It was God's Word "light" that began the creation process. It was God's Word that created manna, which Jesus references in his temptation in the wilderness, "man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God." So it seems then that the Word of God is much more than the Bible. It is in this aspect that we can refer to God's word as one that is living. It is the Word, then, that is the very power and action of God in the world.
This perspective takes on an amazing life when we now use this to read our passage in John. So it is then that Jesus is the very power and action of God in the world (the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood). It is now the author’s testimony to that power and action that we now continue to read. This is an amazing hook for us as the reader to continue on in the story.
The author uses "life" and "light" as descriptors of Jesus more than any other writer in the New Testament. Perhaps we will find more insight in this fact as we continue to read through this book. For now it is an interesting note. Somehow contrasting the light and life found in the Christ with the darkness and death found outside him.
John the Baptist
As we now move into the story of John the Baptist, I feel it is interesting to note the similarities between John and Elijah (lived in the desert, ate locusts and honey, camel hair coat, leather belt), yet he denies that he is Elijah. In the Jewish tradition of Passover (one of the most important holidays in the Jewish religion) a cup of wine is set aside for the return of Elijah to announce the end time. So he denies it. He also denies being the Prophet from Duet. 18:15. It was the Prophet (or a series of prophets) that was to come and announce the coming of the Messiah. Is it the fact that John was, in fact, none of these? Perhaps, John knew his place in God's plan very well. His place was to testify of the coming of the Messiah, yet everyone wanted to know about him.
John's humility in his response is tremendous. It was, perhaps, not to deny so much the identities people assumed he was, but to dismantle any extra attention he might receive for admitting such things, thus stealing the thunder from the true Messiah Jesus Christ.
Immediately following this account is John seeing Jesus and announcing him as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." I will end with this thought/question. What does it mean for Jesus to take away the sins of the world? In Matthew 1:21 the angel of the Lord tells Joseph that he will save his people from their sins. What is it about sin that we need saving? Is it merely that sin condemns us to Hell, so Jesus came to save us from the wrath of God caused by our sins? Or is there, perhaps, an oppressive nature inherent in sin? Our sin, and the realization of that sin, therefore the realization of our imperfect nature, and even more so our horribleness, do hold us down and keep us from what God always intended for us. Is this the oppression God desired to free us from? At least in part?
The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing - not one thing! - came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light. The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word." We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, This endless knowing and understanding - all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. Thunder in the Desert
When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest. He didn't evade the question. He told the plain truth: "I am not the Messiah." They pressed him, "Who, then? Elijah?" "I am not." "The Prophet?" "No." Exasperated, they said, "Who, then? We need an answer for those who sent us. Tell us something - anything! - about yourself." "I'm thunder in the desert: 'Make the road straight for God!' I'm doing what the prophet Isaiah preached." Those sent to question him were from the Pharisee party. Now they had a question of their own: "If you're neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?" John answered, "I only baptize using water. A person you don't recognize has taken his stand in your midst. He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I'm not even worthy to hold his coat for him." These conversations took place in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing at the time.
The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I've been talking about, 'the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.' I knew nothing about who he was - only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God." John clinched his witness with this: "I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, 'The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' That's exactly what I saw happen, and I'm telling you, there's no question about it: This is the Son of God." The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb."
I took out verse numbers so we would focus less on separating each statement for each verse's meaning and focus more on the unveiling of the complete story. As we go through this, hopefully we will not isolate or freeze text in order to prove our own points, but rather we would take in a more complete unfolding of God's story.
I chose to start with the Gospel of John for one sincere purpose and perhaps one selfish one. Sincerely, I want us to begin with an account of Jesus' life where we can study his ministry and learn directly from his example. Selfishly, perhaps, I chose this one because I believe it has the most powerful beginning of any book. So powerful of a beginning that I have meditated long on this passage and studied deeply on its meaning. So I perhaps come a little more prepared on this specific occasion than I will in the future.
The Word
What has always captivated me about this passage is how it begins. It's almost cryptic. As if the author is writing in some kind of code. His use and reuse of "the Word" was something that took much time for me to understand. In my first readings years ago, I always understood the Word to be the term we use for the Bible. This seemed confusing to me, because the Bible was something I knew was created much later. I thought perhaps God held its contents with himself from the very beginning. I thought the actual book of the Bible was something God knew word for word and his ultimate plan was to give it to humanity. Even still, I thought it was a strange statement to say that the world was created through it. This first part of John remained a mystery to me through many years of my Christian life.
A couple of years ago, I listened to a talk on CD that I picked up from the Emergent Convention in San Diego by Rob Bell. Though he did not address this specific passage, some of his talk gave me quite interesting insight into this cryptic language. First of all John starts out the passage "In the Beginning", a seemingly direct quote from Genesis, connecting God's work through Jesus with God's original work. Secondly, the Word of God has very deep yet familiar meaning in the Jewish language of Jesus' day. Where we as Christians have developed Trinitarian language in describing the attributes of God, I believe Jews have always believed in a communal nature of God.
The Kabbala (though a fairly marginal discipline within the Jewish tradition) believes in the 10 sefirot, which is the ten emanations or "lights" through which God interacts with, and relates to, His world. Even without this tradition we know Old Testament Jews believed in multiple attributes of God. It was the Name of God that was to be revered. The Holy Name of God. This was the mystery of God. A formless mystery. Then there was the Word of God. It was God's Word "light" that began the creation process. It was God's Word that created manna, which Jesus references in his temptation in the wilderness, "man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God." So it seems then that the Word of God is much more than the Bible. It is in this aspect that we can refer to God's word as one that is living. It is the Word, then, that is the very power and action of God in the world.
This perspective takes on an amazing life when we now use this to read our passage in John. So it is then that Jesus is the very power and action of God in the world (the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood). It is now the author’s testimony to that power and action that we now continue to read. This is an amazing hook for us as the reader to continue on in the story.
The author uses "life" and "light" as descriptors of Jesus more than any other writer in the New Testament. Perhaps we will find more insight in this fact as we continue to read through this book. For now it is an interesting note. Somehow contrasting the light and life found in the Christ with the darkness and death found outside him.
John the Baptist
As we now move into the story of John the Baptist, I feel it is interesting to note the similarities between John and Elijah (lived in the desert, ate locusts and honey, camel hair coat, leather belt), yet he denies that he is Elijah. In the Jewish tradition of Passover (one of the most important holidays in the Jewish religion) a cup of wine is set aside for the return of Elijah to announce the end time. So he denies it. He also denies being the Prophet from Duet. 18:15. It was the Prophet (or a series of prophets) that was to come and announce the coming of the Messiah. Is it the fact that John was, in fact, none of these? Perhaps, John knew his place in God's plan very well. His place was to testify of the coming of the Messiah, yet everyone wanted to know about him.
John's humility in his response is tremendous. It was, perhaps, not to deny so much the identities people assumed he was, but to dismantle any extra attention he might receive for admitting such things, thus stealing the thunder from the true Messiah Jesus Christ.
Immediately following this account is John seeing Jesus and announcing him as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." I will end with this thought/question. What does it mean for Jesus to take away the sins of the world? In Matthew 1:21 the angel of the Lord tells Joseph that he will save his people from their sins. What is it about sin that we need saving? Is it merely that sin condemns us to Hell, so Jesus came to save us from the wrath of God caused by our sins? Or is there, perhaps, an oppressive nature inherent in sin? Our sin, and the realization of that sin, therefore the realization of our imperfect nature, and even more so our horribleness, do hold us down and keep us from what God always intended for us. Is this the oppression God desired to free us from? At least in part?
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