01012022 – John 1. 10-18 Christmas II
I just hope this works on “some level.” I ask that you bear with me.
Four different authors watch “an event unfold” and report back their stories to four separate and completely different audiences.
The first is a fisherman. He feels the pressure of time and has to be the first one to report in. He writes for other folks-very-much-like-himself. He is short, curt, concise, and to the point.
The second reporter is a Rabbi from a big city (like New York city) and his audience would be his fellow Jews living in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, and in the borough of Queens.
The third reporter was a doctor (an MD)-turned-reporter-for-CNN. All he cares about is getting his accurate message aired…for a world-wide-audience. Accuracy and an orderly account were all that mattered.
The fourth reporter is a “tenured” University Professor from Madison, WI. His classes are all Philosophy Classes 300 level and above. He refuses to teach introductory classes leaving that for “new-comers” and for the TA’s.
Were he to report back to anyone, it would be to the movers and the shakers, the highbrows of Academia!
These four guys all want to tell you about Jesus of Nazareth.
“From them,” you GET what you GET. You are to consider the individual source!
So, when it comes to the Season of Christmas…you know it is going to be a mishmash.
It is with “this latter Philosopher” – that we are concerned with today. His work is going to be “highly philosophical and intellectual.” He likes dichotomies and parallels. He likes things normally in opposition to one another. You know…like LIGHT and DARKNESS. Life and death, yin and yang, negatives, and positives…
He loves to toy with the broader concepts of life…
He enjoys “the thought patterns” of the ancient Stoics and the Hellenists – “the heyday of Philosophical thinking…” He enjoys their reasoning and their logic.
He likes a good challenge, a verbal barrage, a volleying of verbiage.
This former guy REFUSES to speak of such “pedestrian concepts” as angels and shepherds and mangers and spittle-soaked hay or straw.
It is, so far, beneath him…
His preference would be to lecture or to discuss (if need be) about LOGIC and SUPREME INTELLIGENCE, you know, the GRAND DESIGNER, the FIRST MOVER, the FIRST CAUSE, the SUPREME COMPUTER. He longed to speak of time and of matter.
In his first-rough-draft he penned: “In the beginning was LOGIC, and the LOGIC was with God, and the LOGIC WAS GOD. “All things were made in the beginning through this logic.” The logic was a personal pronoun, that is, the logic was him. The Logic was light and life.
He tried other concepts, as well. Logic didn’t quite seem to work. Perhaps he would use THE DESIGNER, or the MIND of GOD, or the LOGIC of GOD, or the INTELLIGENCE OF GOD, but none of them seemed to work either. So, he settled on the LOGOS…THE WORD. Much better! More appropriate.
No Mary, no Joseph, no star, or wisemen, all are NOT NECESSARY-adiaphora!
People were gonna love this stuff, they were going to eat it up. It was good!
In reality, these verses have caused both wonder and controversy throughout Christian history. When read as ordinary language, they are majestic and profound, yet bristling with interpretive and theological difficulties.
He is talking about a COSMIC MESSIAH…far beyond the reach of the Hebraic peoples.
This is not biography.
This is not a diary.
This is not history, per se.
This is a “philosophical poem,” “prose,” for the ages. This is not about conveying information about Jesus.
Instead, it is about the “quality of a relationship” with Jesus that is ALL or NOTHING.
There is nothing in between.
The author purposefully sets up either-or-alternatives.
He loves them.
You must choose.
You must decide.
Life or death.
Light or darkness.
Abiding or Abandoning.
Inner Circle or EVERYBODY ELSE.
“Everlasting Winner or Cosmic Loser.”
The choice is yours.
Not EVERYONE is going to get this…but those that do, will have it for all eternity.
They will have the “light of life.”
It is a love story about the GRAND DESIGNER, who is true, faithful, loyal, abiding, enduring, everlasting, unwavering, unhesitant, passionate, healing, forgiving, reconciling, joyful and who holds nothing back.
Now HOW will YOU respond to HIM? Amen.