God Who Enters the Mess

Transcript

Auto-generated from the audio. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

[0:00] Thank you, Pear, for that reading. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word. We ask that you fill our hearts, our minds with the blessing of your word. Speak to us through your Holy Spirit. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I have to admit, I was so eager to preach on the passage that Pear just spoke.

[0:37] The majesty and the poetry. And when I dug in deeper, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the words. And the farther I dug, the deeper. I got. There's so much in this passage, and we have only a short time today to explore it. And I even found myself a little overwhelmed. And I think we could spend days, and I think we could spend weeks. There are so many angles we could take with all the knowledge and all the history and the word studies. And we could try and we could take forever to cover it.

[1:22] But there is poetry. There is poetry. And there is majesty. And there's not just poetry and majesty in this chapter of the Bible. But in this story that God has written for us. And this is Christmastide. It's a season that is meant to be filled with the mystery and the majesty and the poetry and the love of God.

[2:02] And for me, for me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included. For me included.

[2:27] and even though they come only once at the beginning and then well they they kind of appear throughout they just kept ringing in my head over and over first as a statement and then as a question and then as a charge and so I kind of want this to ring in your mind as well and these are the four words who was with God it was Jesus who was with God in the beginning he was the word John didn't write a traditional birth narrative you remember how great his life was for his for for for for for for for for for for for Israel fell and so long before King David was promised an ever-reigning heir and so long before Abraham was promised descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky. In fact, here in John we see that Jesus, the Word, was with God so long before those stars themselves were even spoken into being. In the beginning, before time began, before there even was a world, there was God.

[4:26] And who was with God? The Word was with God. Lagos. To be the Lagos, the Word of God, is to be the way God expresses himself to his creation. He is the very expression of God to humanity. And so the reflection of all that we see and know and understand of who God is.

[5:07] Later in the passage we see that nobody has seen the Father except for the Son. But the Son has seen the Father and he has been passing on the knowledge onto us since the very dawn of the new age. And so we see that God is the One of creation.

[5:29] He was the spoken order into the chaos, the light spoken into the darkness. Humanity was created and he introduced himself to humanity through the intimate expression of himself, which was the Word. And the Word wasn't just with God, the Word was God. And God's light shone in the darkness for sin for ages and ages.

[6:07] God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. God entered into the mess and the chaos over and over. most chaotic and messy times, that God's in the thick of it all with me. God is holy, and God cannot be close to sin. That is what his holiness means. But it's during this chaos and darkness of creation that God deliberately chose to enter in and speak order into it. And it was during, if you recall, the Eklund's reading, it was during the chaos and the sin and the aftermath of the fall, where Adam and Eve were hiding in shame, that God very deliberately came walking into the garden and very deliberately chose to come and seek Adam and Eve out and speak his word of order into their lives.

[7:25] It was when Cain felt angry and chaotic that God deliberately interjected into the situation. And then again, when things got worse, when he had even murdered Abel, God's own beloved creation, God invited Jacob into a wrestling match. He sat with stubborn Jonah in the heat while forgiving the unforgivable Jacob. And then he sat with Jacob in the heat while forgiving the unforgivable Jacob.

[7:59] He sat with stubborn Jonah in the heat while forgiving the unforgivable Jacob. And then again, himself from the messiness of humanity, he can do that. What humans know of God, what they expect of God, he really ought to. In fact, you know, you think about, you think about mythology and you think about stories humans have of gods, like gods sitting on Mount Olympus enjoying life with other gods apart from humans.

[8:53] But our God doesn't do that. When we are at our worst and our most vulnerable and our honestly just our grossest, God is a patient parent. He sees this disruption and instead of saying, you know what, you do you, you're on your own, I can't take it anymore, he says, I've got to step in and I've got to right this wrong. And from the beginning, God's word of wisdom and light has always made order out of the chaos and the darkness. And we see that. This is why this service of lessons and carols is so special because, you know, so much of the year we take parts of the Bible, because that's, you know, that's all we have time for in a typical church service. We have a few moments with each other. We have to take certain parts. But this, the service of lessons and carols, we see the whole story knitted together. And that's what it is, that from, from time eternal to time eternal, this story has been created for us from the beginning.

[10:24] In the end. In the end. In the end. In the end. In the end. In the end. darkness were now with God. The people stumbling into the darkness, they were the ones with God, but they had been stumbling in the darkness for so long that our passage says they couldn't even recognize him. So yes, they were with him, but they didn't even know that it's him. And so that's some more poetry, but that's the kind of poetry that leaves that foul taste in your mouth. It's still poetry, but it's sour. And it's still a true story, isn't it? It's not just poetry. Now, I have to admit, I sometimes wish that John didn't interject his, um, weird part about his witness to the light into the middle of this chapter. I don't always know what to do with it, because there's so much poetry and beauty, and then there's just this weird part. But then again, this really does make sense.

[12:09] John is supposed to always point at Jesus, and so are we. Once we recognize that he's a witness, we can't really know what to do with it. And so, I think that's the word. We're supposed to help others to recognize him as well. We are all meant to be witnesses to the light. People respected John in his own right. By the time he was writing this gospel, he actually had a legitimate, um, task to point people away from himself and toward Christ. And we can take kind of a lesson from him, because in his own right, he was supposed to help others to recognize him as well. And so, I think that's his own right. He had some clout. He himself was becoming a bit of a big deal.

[12:58] And yet, he knew his job was not to become a big deal himself, but to point people toward Christ. Our job is to always and forever to be witnesses for Christ. Lights for the light. Christ. Christ. for for Christ. for the in the darkness.

[13:19] So as John says in 2031, he writes, "'So that all may believe that Jesus is the Christ, "'the Son of God, and that by believing "'you may have life in his name.'" He ultimately is just constantly concerned with pointing the way to Christ.

[13:40] We were all walking in the darkness at one point. There was a point where God was standing among us and we did not recognize him. But somehow he became revealed to us. And I want you to think to that point in your life and how grateful you were for that moment.

[14:17] You were shown the way and given the chance to become a child of God. And so the question for us is, are we helping other people to have that chance to recognize Christ among us? God was right here in the flesh in a world among a world that didn't even recognize him. God was right here in the flesh right here in a kingdom that has already come, in a world that does not recognize him.

[14:57] For many years, Romans 8, 37 through 39 has been kind of a power passage for me, and this is how it goes. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I like to get creative and add things to that list, whatever the current chaos is, because Jesus is bigger than all of it, because he is the word from the beginning, transcending time itself. He is God who is the author of all things, and he is the author of all things. He is the author of life who conquered death. What is your list?

[15:53] You are convinced that neither, nor can ever separate you from the word of God who has become flesh and beaten death itself to come and be near to you. And now think of somebody else, too. Don't try and fill in their list, but I know that there's somebody on your heart, and they have a list that weighs on their heart.

[16:29] Can you imagine the even more desperate heart of a God who would stop at nothing, who would enter any chaos, who has already paid the price for an eternity of redemption, who is so close to them, who is so close to them, but is not known.

[16:50] Our charge is that we point them to the light that is waiting to comfort them in the midst of their chaos. And here's the question again. Who was with God? The children of God were with God. Verse 14 says the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The word here for dwelling means setting up tent and it may feel more reminiscent of the tabernacle. And you can't think of it like we might think of it as a modern day camping trip taking a quick like weekend getaway, but more like an, an ancient culture pioneering their way into new lands. To set up camp somewhere means that a person is about to become thoroughly immersed into a new land and a new culture. They are going to be changed by the people around them. And the people around them are going to be changed by them because they're going to be together. This is the word of God. The expression of God at work once more. Because God took on human flesh, he took on the culture and the condition and all of the vulnerabilities of humanity. He was changed by humanity. He took up his dwelling. He set up camp in the condition of humankind. He once again entered into the messiness and the chaos. And he set up camp in the condition of humankind. He once again entered into the messiness and the chaos.

[18:43] And he set up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind.

[19:01] He took up camp in the condition of humankind. He took up camp in the condition of humankind. even dying death on a cross for our sins, so that he could be with us. God made his dwelling right here with his children through Jesus.

[19:28] Again, as God's word, as the expression of God himself. As the expression of God himself, Jesus makes known to us the desires of God. Jesus then is our perfect teacher and our example of how we can live and how we can also be an expression of God to others.

[19:56] Philippians 2.5 says, in your relationship with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In Jesus, we can see how God thinks and how we need to think. We can see in the face of Jesus what God wants us to become. We live 2000 years after Jesus took on flesh, but we are still children of God, as verse 12 says.

[20:26] So we still live with the dwelling of the Holy Spirit and the example of Christ right here among us. Who we are, who is with God, we are right here today. And what I find most amazing about all of this is the contemplation, not just of today, but of eternity.

[20:57] In the beginning was the word, but this intimate expression of God's absolute love existed for our sake, and for our redemption, so that we could also be with God forevermore. So that an eternity from now, when somebody also asks the question, who is with God? The answer can still be the children of God. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.

[21:38] God, we thank you, because there is nothing else we can do when we contemplate the greatness and the majesty of your glorious gift to us at Christmas. We thank you that the word was with God, that the word was with God, that the word became flesh, that you dwelt among us on purpose, out of love for us, in redemption, that we can forever dwell with you as your children.

[22:29] These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.