The Sermon

January 26, 2025

            In the Hebrew, it is שְׁנַת־ (shay-nah) רָצוֹן֙ (rrrot-sown) לַֽיהוָ֔ה (Yahweh), the Year of the Lord’s Favor.  But neither the Hebrew nor the English relate the actual meaning of this phrase because for the Israelites, this phrase is the description of what we now call the “Year of Jubilee”.  And so, before I even start to talk about Luke today, I need to go all the way back to Leviticus 25 so we can understand what the Year of Jubilee is all about.  According to Jewish Law, every 50 years was to be a Year of Jubilee, and every Christian should have an understanding of the requirements for the Year of Jubilee because those requirements reveal a LOT to us about the heart of God.

            The Year of Jubilee was to be a year of rest for the land.  No crops were to be planted, no plants were to be pruned, there was to be no formal harvest.  The people were required to live off of what the land provided, with a promise from God that the land would supply more than enough.  Next, all Jewish people were to return to their ancestral land where their families would be regathered.  Any land that had been sold during the 49 years leading up to the Jubilee year would revert to the original owner.  In fact, when someone purchased land, the price was to be based on how many years remained until the next Year of Jubilee when the purchaser would have to relinquish the land to the person from whom they purchased it.  Finally, in the Year of Jubilee all Israelites who owed debts were to have the debts cancelled and all Jewish slaves were to be freed. 

            Now, let’s stop and think about this for just a moment.  The acquisition of property creates generational wealth.  Whole families become wealthy through the income generated by those purchased lands.  Returning those properties to the original owners every 50 years precludes the possibility of those properties creating generational wealth; and also precludes the possibility of the loss of those properties from creating generational poverty.  This is a law designed specifically to create economic fairness and to prevent the wealthy from disadvantaging other people.  It is a law that illustrates God’s deep concern for the poor and the marginalized by addressing directly one of the primary things that creates poverty.

            The cancelling of debts also inhibits the acquisition of generational wealth and the creation of generational poverty.  Those in debt are released from the burden of the money that they owe.  Has anyone ever celebrated their last mortgage payment or their last car payment? When we no longer owe this money, it is a welcome relief as now the money once paid to satisfy the debt becomes ours!  And since slaves usually became slaves out of an inability to pay their debts, the releasing of slaves does the same.  And not only is the slave to be released, but any debts the slave had are to be cancelled, and the slave is permitted to return to their ancestral home, once again taking possession of the land.  Can we see what a reversal this creates?  But it does even more, according to Jewish law, a child born into slavery automatically became a slave as well, so the freeing of slaves did more than liberate the once indebted, it liberated entire families and returned those families to wholeness.

            And lest we think that God’s concern for the poor is limited to a once every fifty-year event, there is a law listed within this Leviticus 25 discussion about the Year of Jubilee that is actually not intended to be a once every 50 years law but is rather a permanent and ongoing law.  Leviticus 25:34-37 “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.  Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you.  You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit.” The Bible mentions poverty over 300 times.  God’s care for the poor is one of the Bible’s most common themes.  And that care is emphatically exhibited here in the requirements for the Year of Jubilee.

            And so, this Year of Jubilee, intended to be observed once every 50 years, creates a God ordained economic reset; a procedure by which all people would be given a fresh start; for some, an opportunity to escape poverty and for some, a loss of acquired or inherited wealth requiring them once again to work for their livelihood.

            One of the things that is striking about our studies of the New Testament is the zeal with which the Israelites often approached their keeping of the law.  But to the best of our understanding, the Israelites NEVER observed a year of Jubilee.  NEVER.  From the giving of the Mosaic Law, thought to have been around 1500 BCE to the time of Jesus, the Year of Jubilee should have celebrated about thirty times.  But it never happened once.  The influence of the wealthy was almost certainly the determining factor in the choices that Israel made to ignore this particular law.  Does anyone find this interesting that those who were so demonstrative about following the minutiae of the law so conveniently ignored this one?  Augustine of Hippo famously said, “They love truth when it enlightens them, they hate it when it accuses them.” [1]  Simply put, the wealthy, who had control of the temple and the government, would never have permitted this economic reset to happen.  Rev. David Cotton once said, “Good news for the poor is always bad news for the rich.”

            And so, now Jesus has returned to His hometown and is attending worship in the synagogue.  He has been asked to speak and has chosen the scroll of Isaiah as His text.  He unrolls the scroll to what we now know is the 61^st chapter and He begins to read: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, TO PROCLAIM THE YEAR OF THE LORD’S FAVOR.”  שְׁנַת־ (shay-nah) רָצוֹן֙ (rrrot-sown) לַֽיהוָ֔ה (Yahweh).  Jesus sat down, the customary way for a Jewish teacher to teach, and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Jesus has come to institute the “Year of Jubilee”. 

            So, how does this work?  The poor are still poor.  The wealthy still take unfair advantage.  No one has been given their ancestral land back, and people are still in prison.  There are those who claim that Jesus was speaking allegorically about spiritual  things; spiritual blindness, spiritual poverty, spiritual prisons… and there can be no question that a part of what Jesus came to do WAS to open the eyes of the spiritually blind and restore wholeness to the spiritually poor or imprisoned, but there is just too much of the Bible expressing God’s deep concern for the earthly needs of His disadvantaged children for us to believe that these needs will be left out of the equation. 

            There is a wonderful book by Dallas Willard called “The Divine Conspiracy”.  It’s a challenging read, but highly recommended.  In this book, Willard explains how God’s kingdom is both future; as in the place of the blessed hope of the Christian but also present in the here and now as followers of Jesus seek to live according to kingdom principles, essentially to create small corners of God’s kingdom in their own lives.  N. T. Wright explained this beautifully when he said, “Although Jesus did not envisage that He would persuade Israel as a whole to keep the Jubilee Year He expected His followers to live out the Jubilee principle among themselves.  He expected, and taught, that they should forgive one another not only ‘sins’ but also debts.  This may help to explain the remarkable practice within the early church whereby resources were pooled…  Luke’s description of this in Acts 4:34 echoes the description of the sabbatical year in Deuteronomy…” [2]

            And just as a reminder, that passage from Acts is a description of how first century Christians actually lived.  Acts 4:32-35: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all – that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”  Jesus came to show us the way to live according to these Jubilee principles and it is our responsibility to be the ones who are bringing sight to the blind and freedom to the captives. 

Our reading today tells us that those who were in the synagogue that day “fixed their eyes on Jesus”.  They were eager to hear what He had to say.  As we will find out next week, they didn’t exactly hear what they wanted to hear, but Jo Anne Taylor asks a great question when she says, “Imagine what it might be like to fix OUR eyes on Jesus!”.  She answers her own question when she says, “We would see the ways our lives impact others with greater clarity. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we can recognize our part in systems sending out false messages that some people have more value than others, that some people deserve more than others – and we can start to do something to change those systems.  We can demonstrate in real and powerful ways that every human being has value and worth to God.” [3]

Melissa Bane Sevier said, “Even though we remember that Jubilee never fully reasserts the complete fairness and equality God desires, we look for places where justice is lacking, and places where efforts are underway to create more equity. When we see those efforts, we celebrate them. When we are able, we emulate them.  When is it Jubilee? We’ll never see it. But we can access the ideal… by celebrating it, moving toward it, and dreaming of justice.” [4]

            For those whose hearts God has touched, Jubilee makes perfectly good sense.  The knowledge of the fact that every single person has been made bearing the image of the Living God leads us to an understanding of the necessity for complete equality among humans.  As the Spirit imparts to us the heart of God, we see the burning necessity for economic fairness; understanding the depth of the tragedy when even one of God’s beloved children goes hungry or homeless.  As we share the mind of God, we deeply understand the pressing need to bring the Good News of Jesus’ redemption and our reconciliation to God to the not yet believing world.  My friends, if we have accepted the role of discipleship, then our lives are no longer our own.  We have been given a higher purpose.  And though we do what we do out of love, the reward for this service that we give will be unimaginable.  Let us all be about the business of working towards inaugurating the Year of Jubilee.

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[1] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions: Book 10 Chapter 23

[2] N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, Pg. 295

[3] Jo Anne Taylor, PastorSings.com: Good News, Bad News – Sermon on Luke 4:14-21

[4] Melissa Bane Sevier, MelissaBaneSevier.Wordpress.com, When Is It Jubilee

How Much Wine?

January 19, 2025

            It’s possible that you may be somewhat familiar with this week’s reading, and if you are not, that’s totally OK, because I hope to look at it from a slightly different perspective anyway.  For the next few minutes, I’m going to have to ask everyone to imagine themselves as being first century residents of Palestine.  Don’t worry, I will help you to do that. 

            We are going to a wedding.  Our text doesn’t say for whom, but given the specifics of the story, and Jesus’ mother Mary’s involvement in the logistics of the wedding, it’s probably safe to assume that it is the wedding of a relative of Jesus.  Jesus is here too, with the first five of His chosen disciples, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathaniel, and the unnamed disciple who Jesus loved.  It is, of course, common practice to invite teachers and religious dignitaries to things like this.  It gives the festivities an air of prestige and of course the teacher’s students are expected to attend with them.

            We all expect to be here for a while.  The groom and his family have worked long and hard to prepare for this feast, and we will probably be here celebrating for about a week.  I hope you all brought your appetites.  Our twenty-first century versions of ourselves recognize a wedding as being a union between two individuals, but our first century Palestinian selves understand that a wedding is actually a union of two families.  We are all looking forward to a huge celebration; a wonderful and joyous event with singing and dancing and lots of eating and drinking.  Did I say lot’s of drinking?  Well, like I said, it’s a joyous event, and there is an old Jewish saying that “without wine, there is no joy”.

            We are a few days into the event now and our joyous celebration may possibly be grinding to a halt.  The host is running out of wine.  Now, not only is running out of wine disastrous to the reputation of the groom and his family, I mean, twenty years from now, they will still be known as that family that ran out of wine.  But there is more to it than that.  In the Middle Eastern world then, as now, hospitality is a VERY big thing.  So big in fact, that running out of wine at this wedding feast could potentially result in a lawsuit against the groom’s family.  It’s true!  And so, Mary, recognizing this impending disaster, comes to Jesus and says “Hey, we’re out of wine”.

            And now, we have to take a look at Jesus’ response, for a few reasons.  The NIV tells us that Jesus responded, “Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.”  And right away our first thought is, “Gee, that was a bit of a testy response”.  But it really isn’t, at least not all of it.  The addressing of His mom as “woman” seems in English to be a bit disrespectful, or maybe distant, but it absolutely isn’t.  In Greek, the word is Γύναι (Gunai) and according to Klink, the word is “respectful, and even affectionate, meaning something like ma’am”. [1] It is this same word that Jesus used from the cross when he said to His mother “woman, behold your son”.  So, the first thing to get out of our minds is this idea that Jesus’ comment is disrespectful.  Now, it is possible that the next thing that Jesus said may have been a mild reproach.  A few weeks ago, we discussed how Jesus gently took the name “Father” away from Joseph and gave it to God.  Just as when Jesus stayed behind at the temple, Jesus is making it clear here that His priority is to do God’s will, not to be doing any human’s will, even if that human is His mom.  But Mary, trusting that her Son will do exactly the right thing, instructs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.

            When we first arrived at this wedding and we prepared to eat our first meal, we had to do the ritual hand washing as required by Jewish oral law.  One at a time, we stepped up to these large jars that were filled with water.  A servant poured water over our hands three times and each of us recited a prayer at each pouring.  And, of course, we did this before every meal.  Now, the purification water was sometimes stored in clay jars, but clay jars in time would allow some of the clay to dissolve into the water, rendering the water ceremonially (and probably factually) unclean.  But our host is not using clay jars, they are using stone jars.  Stone jars are more expensive but will not impart residue to the water and so, stone jars remain ceremonially clean all the time.  Nothing but the best for our guests!  And our host has made sure that there will be plenty of water for these ceremonial washings as he has supplied us with six stone jars with each jar holding between twenty and thirty gallons of water.

            After Mary advised Jesus of the wine shortage and Jesus told Mary that essentially, this wasn’t His problem.  Jesus went ahead and instructed the servants to take all six of those ceremonial stone purification jars and fill them to the brim with water.  He then instructed the servants to draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.  No one except for Jesus, the servants, and possibly the disciples, know that it was water that had filled those jars, but now, the master of the banquet declares this drink, not only to BE wine, but to be the best wine.

            But now, all is not exactly hunky dory at this wedding.  Jesus has just done something that we are going to see from Him often over the next three years of His ministry, because in making this wine, Jesus has created a new problem.  Where is everyone supposed to do the ceremonial washing of their hands?  The ceremonial washing jars are now all filled with wine.

            Jesus has done more than just alleviate an embarrassing problem for one of His relatives.  Jesus, in performing His very first miracle, is also making His first statement about the new wine.  The New Testament, on multiple occasions, uses the phrase “new wine” to represent the new life that Jesus has come to offer us.  And we will talk about this a little bit more later.  This new life in Jesus no longer requires continual ritual purification.  There is no need for the ritual hand washing, which, by the way, never really had anything to do with hygiene.  G. H. C. MacGregor tells us that, “The theme is the transmuting of the water of the old Jewish ceremonial into the wine of the new Christian Gospel.” [2]

            And let’s remember, wine represents Joy!  This new wine is the Gospel that bursts the old wineskins.  It is the joyful proclamation that we have been redeemed from sin and death and that we have been reconciled to the Father and now are able to stand in His presence wearing the robe of Christ’s righteousness.  And not only is there joy… there is joy in abundance, illustrated in the fact that Jesus has just made about 180 gallons of wine.

            OK, we can all come back to the 21^st century now.  John concludes this portion of his story with the statement that, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”  In an approach that is thoroughly characteristic of John’s style, the subject of interest in his story is not the miracle itself but rather is on the significance of the miracle.  I am not sure how many folks at the wedding became aware of what happened.  We know that initially only Jesus, the servants, and possibly the disciples knew that the water had been miraculously turned into wine.  Things being what they are, I can’t imagine that the story of what happened didn’t spread pretty quickly, and I am sure that all who believed that the miracle actually happened were flabbergasted.  When the story of the miracle was told by the servants, I am sure that some believed them, and some didn’t.  Klink tells us that, “The church’s existence in this world is like being one of the servants in the wedding who knows [the truth about the wine] is but is surrounded by people who are unaware.” [3]  It is important for us not to forget this truth.  We have been entrusted with an awesome responsibility to bring the Good News of the new wine to those among us who are unaware.

For John, the miracle is important because it was a sign.  Klink tells us, “The signs function as the means by which Jesus ‘revealed His glory’.  The signs point us to something beyond themselves, so that the images pressed upon the reader by the narrative regarding Jesus reflect who He is and what He can, and will, do.  These signs then, express what the prologue and introduction have foretold: We beheld His glory.” [4] 

            All three synoptic Gospels relate Jesus’ parable about not putting new wine into old wineskins.  The new wine will expand as it continues to ferment, and that expansion will burst old wineskins that have lost their elasticity.  New wine must be put into new wineskins that have the capacity to expand with the wine.  Our lesson today is telling us exactly the same truth.  The new simply does not fit into the old. 

            Again, Klink tells us, “Everything about those jars of water for Jewish purification speaks of Judaism and the old covenant.  Yet their value was entirely changed in the presence of Jesus.  The moment He arrived; true cleansing had no need for ceremonial jars made of purified stone.  Rather, their use was relegated to serving as containers for celebratory wine.” [5]

            With Jesus, something completely new is happening.  No longer is faith about rituals and purification.  With Jesus, faith becomes a matter of the heart.  As we are reconciled to God through Jesus, the Spirit begins a change in our hearts that will cause our hearts to resemble God’s heart.  Our obedience to God becomes not a matter of choosing to behave in a certain way, but a matter of, through the Spirit, sharing the heart and the mind of God, aligning our actions with God’s plan for our lives.

            My dear friends, the call to us IS to share the mind of Christ.  When we share the mind of Christ, our actions and words begin to take the shape of the loving and gracious actions of our Lord.  And as this love of God begins to be exhibited in our lives, the message that we send to the unbelieving world is: THIS is what life is supposed to look like.  THIS is what God’s love looks like in action.  Come, and taste the new wine.

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[1] Edward W. Klink III, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 163

[2] G. H. C MacGregor, The Moffatt New Testament Commentary: The Gospel of John. Pg. 48

[3] Edward W. Klink III, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 172

[4] Edward W. Klink III, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 169

[5] Edward W. Klink III, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 171

Water, Holy Spirit, and Fire

 January 12, 2025

           John the Baptist apparently made quite a splash, no pun intended… well, maybe.  Over the last few weeks we have spoken about the huge crowds that had come to hear him speak and to be baptized by him.  Back in September one of our readings from Mark told us that “All the land of Judea and all that were in Jerusalem were baptized by him”.  Yes, John made quite a big splash indeed, and not without good reason.

A nation, under oppressive Roman rule, longing for their promised redemption, probably found great hope in the fact that the prophetic voice of God, silent for the last four centuries, was once again speaking among them.  The excitement must have been tremendous.  John was giving them hope, and I am sure that a big part of his popularity revolved around the idea that people were believing that the redemption of Israel was finally at hand.  John was forceful, he was bold in his preaching and peculiar in his lifestyle and mannerisms.  If someone was going to be a prophet, John probably fit the bill better than anyone that the first century Palestinians had ever seen.  And so, the question that was on all of their minds was “Could this be the Messiah?” 

We don’t know if someone asked John that question directly or if the Spirit simply told him what to say, but John wanted to make it abundantly clear that he was not the Messiah.  According to Jewish law, a disciple, a student of a teacher, was required to do anything for their master that a slave could be required to do, with one exception.  To remove the sandals of your master was considered to be a task too lowly to be performed, even by a Jewish slave… or a student.  This was a task that was reserved for the Gentile slaves.  And yet, John makes it clear to his listeners that he is unworthy to perform even this lowliest of tasks for the One who is to follow. 

John further explains that his baptism with water is a symbolic one, a public statement of one’s intent to turn from their worldly ways and incline their hearts towards God’s righteousness.  But… John says, the baptism of the One who follows will be a baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire. 

John then continues to describe Jesus with an apocalyptic statement about winnowing forks and chaff and fire.  The image of the winnowing fork is something with which his audience would have been quite familiar, but for us… not so much.  When grain was harvested in the first century the harvesters used sickles to cut down the entire stalk.  The stalks were laid out on a hardened “threshing floor” where animals were brought in to pull rollers over the grain, which separated the grain from the stalks and chaff.  Then, a winnowing fork, something that resembled a pitchfork, was used to pick the stalks up and toss them up into the air.  The heavier grain would fall back down to the threshing floor, but the much lighter chaff would be carried away with the breeze.  The grain was then collected and stored or sold while the chaff would be gathered up to be used as fuel for the fire. 

And it’s here where John’s language about “burning the chaff with unquenchable fire” starts to maybe sound a little out of place because it doesn’t seem to match our experience with the loving and gracious Jesus that we encounter a little later in the Gospels.  But we need to realize that, while Jesus sought to be a gentle persuader of willing hearts, Jesus did indeed come to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Richard Niell Donovan tells us that, “The separation of wheat from chaff serves as a metaphor for Jesus separating the redeemed from the unredeemed and gathering the redeemed into their heavenly home.  The ‘unquenchable fire’ serves as a metaphor for the eternal punishment of those who are not redeemed, and thus speaks of the eternal consequences of our choices.” [1]

And now for the second Sunday in a row I’m starting to sound like that fire and brimstone guy again, so I really do need to explain.

Each and every person has the full and completely unrestrained choice to decide for themselves what their relationship with God will be.  Whether they choose to examine the claims of the Bible or not… up to them.  Whether they choose to discover the depth of God’s love for them or not… up to them.  Whether they choose to respond positively to God’s love, or ignore God’s love, or outright reject God’s love… up to them.  But in the exercising of these choices, we need to understand that we are also responsible for all of the repercussions of those choices.  And we need to understand the fact that at some point in time these choices will become permanent.  It is not a pleasant thought, but Leon Morris tells us that, “Unless we can be sure that, in the end, evil will be decisively overthrown there is no ultimate Good News.” [2]

Now, please understand this:  It is absolutely not God’s will that anyone should be lost.  We read in 2^nd Peter 3:9 that “God is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”  But… God will not force us, and He will not coerce us.  The choice is entirely and completely ours.  But here is where the second half of John’s description comes into play, because Jesus is not just baptizing with fire, He is also baptizing with the Holy Spirit.  And this is really the essence of what we Christians love to call the Good News.  Because all of our fears, all of our worries, all of our concerns about our status before an eternal God are wiped away when we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

Without entering into a discussion today about the merits of the various methods of baptizing, the Jewish understanding was that baptism was all about the emerging from water, having been fully immersed.  This was done as a sign of new life, dying to the old, and being reborn into the new.  And so, as we are baptized with the Holy Spirt, we are entirely immersed in the Spirit.  We emerge from our baptism with the Spirit, – as new creatures, and the Spirit becomes a permanent part of who we are. 

And now we reach the point in our story where Jesus is finally baptized, Jesus comes up out of the water and He says a prayer.  And as He is praying, Luke tells us that heaven was opened and that the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

But here, troublemaker that I am, I need to stop and ask, what exactly is it about which God was well pleased?  I mean, to this point in the story, Jesus has been born, received some gifts from some wise men, stayed behind at the temple in Jerusalem, causing some consternation for His parents, and just got baptized.  That’s really not much of a resume so far, so why is God so pleased?  God is pleased not because of what Jesus has done, but because of who Jesus is.  Does this sound familiar?  David E. Garland tells us that, “The effects of the Spirit in the life of Jesus are evident in what follows: the power to resist the wiles of Satan, the power to recall and apply scripture, the power to see God’s plan and purposes and to proclaim the Word boldly, the power to withstand hostility, and the power to minister to and heal the oppressed.  The Spirit in the lives of believers can do the same things.” [3]

The thing about which God was well pleased, was the fact of Jesus’ complete and total obedience to the will of God, through the leading of the Holy Spirit.  And there is a lesson to be learned for us here too.

God chooses to love us for who we are.  But God will not allow us to remain the same.  As He fills us with His Spirit, our values and our goals and our desires become rearranged.  Bit by bit, we leave worldly wisdom behind, and we begin to view our lives from a kingdom perspective.  We become obedient to the will of God, not because we make a choice to behave in a certain way, but because it is simply our new nature to do so.  Jesus did what He did because He and the Father had the same mind and the same goal.  Through the Holy Spirit, believers are able to have the same mind and the same goal as God also.  Let’s stop and think about this for just a moment.  The Holy Spirt who is fully and completely God, dwells within each of us.  And the only limitations to the Spirit’s ability to transform us into Christ-likeness are the limitations that we impose ourselves.

My dear friends, we have been called to a heavenly task.  As believers, we are not content to sit idly by as those we love (and just a gentle reminder, those we love includes everyone!), we are not content to sit idly by while others make choices that result in their separation from God instead of their reconciliation with God.  Remember, this is the real and living God actually dwelling within us, and it is He who directs us towards compassion and empathy.  It is He who leads us to share His remarkable, extravagant, all-encompassing love with others.  It is He who calls us to be gracious and forgiving.  And when needed, it is He who gives us the words to say that help others to find ultimate truth in the person of Jesus Christ.

Now, before we all get all nervous.  Let me make something clear.  I’m not advocating knocking on doors, or handing out tracts, or accosting strangers at the Shop-Rite.  Not that there may not be some who God calls to these ministries, but for the most part, we need to understand that sharing God’s love works best one heart at a time. And that when we are faithful, God will put people in our path and call us to be a friend to them.  And that friendship may manifest itself in a variety of different ways, depending on needs and on available resources.  Maybe it’s a little financial help when really needed, or perhaps an offer to babysit, or to make a grocery run.  Maybe it’s no more than lending a sympathetic ear or maybe just sitting and being good company.  How do we know what to do?  We probably don’t, but the Spirit will tell us.

And as we are being faithful to love these folks who God has put in our path; it is critical to remember that our job is just to plant the seed.  It is God who brings the increase.  You’ve heard me say before that the person who is most responsible for me being a Christian has no idea that his words and actions led me to Christ.  But this friend of mine, this person in whose path God put ME, was happy simply to be the one planting the seeds.  He didn’t need the confirmation of my conversion.  He didn’t need an ego boost from tallying another soul.  He didn’t need these things because what he did, he did in love.

When all is said and done, the most powerful force in the universe is love.  If I… if we, each in our own little corner of the world, are able to love others with a love that resembles the love with which God loves us, then we will find ourselves being seed planters also.  And there is nothing in this life that is more important

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[1] Richard Niell Donovan, SermonWriter.com, Biblical Commentary on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

[2] Leon Morris, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Luke Revised Edition, Pg. 108

[3] David E. Garland, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 172

The True Light

Sermon January 5, 2025

            In the early 1990’s I was traveling with my mom and my family from New Jersey to Memphis, Tennessee to visit my grandparents.  My mom had decided that she wanted to do something on the trip that would be fun for her grandson, and so we stopped to visit the Luray Caverns in Virginia.  The caverns were pretty spectacular with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, underground streams, and vast expanses of space.  The place was huge!  In fact, I understand that the Luray Caverns are the largest caverns on the east coast.  All of the spaces in the caverns were brilliantly illuminated, and I never once gave any thought at all to that illumination.  We are just so accustomed to seeing things in the light that we don’t even give it a thought.  And even at night there is often moonlight, and starlight, and when you live in New Jersey the ubiquitous artificial lighting that mostly allows us to see even in the dark.  I didn’t give that lighting in the caverns much thought, until they momentarily turned off the lights.

            Have you ever been in complete and total darkness?  It is extremely unsettling, and I for one am glad that the lights were only off for maybe 10 seconds or so, although those ten seconds did seem interminable, and you could hear a collective sigh of relief as the lights were turned back on.   So, I am sure that I was not the only one who found the darkness to be quite uncomfortable.  In that total darkness it was absolutely impossible to see anything.  The tour guide who turned out the lights suggested that we put our hands in front of our faces.  It was a worthless gesture.  If you have never been in complete darkness, it is difficult to explain what it was like, but you dare not take a step, because you have no idea where that step will lead.  My son Joe was around 11 years old at the time and I remember fumbling around trying to find him just to take his hand.  When the lights came back on, I was holding one of his hands and my wife Jackie was holding the other.

            Darkness is debilitating.  Humans lack the ability to accomplish anything in the dark, lack the ability to travel safely in the dark, lack the ability to defend themselves or others in the dark, lack the ability to interact with others in the dark, in short, we become pretty much useless.

            In today’s reading, John tells us that “In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of all [humankind].  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomeit.”  Jesus is the light illuminating the souls of those who love Him.  For those who don’t know Him, or don’t love Him, they are walking in darkness, and that darkness is total.  Total, as in not being able to see your hand in front of your face.  Total as in not being able to travel safely or to defend ourselves.  Total as in being completely unable to interact with others in any meaningful way.  Total, as in pretty much totally useless.  Imagine the most complete darkness you have ever experienced, then imagine trying to function in that darkness.  And spiritually speaking, that is what we are trying to do if we are living our lives without “the Light of all humankind”.

            Now, one would think that the world would welcome the light; that the world would gravitate to that light as a moth to a porch light.  But John tells us otherwise.  In the Greek, the word John uses that we translate as “overcome” is κατέλαβεν (ketayleben) and κατέλαβεν is a compound word with κατά which is a word that Greeks used in the same way that we use the prefix “anti” which is used to negate the word that follows it, and λαμβάνω (lambano) which means to take or to receive.  So κατέλαβεν means to fail or refuse to receive.  The light shines in the darkness, but those living in the darkness refuse to receive the light.  (That’s my translation).

            The purpose of John’s Gospel is to introduce us to “The Word” who is the light of the world.  The first 18 verses of the Gospel which we read this morning are called the “Prologue” and in classical Greek literary style the prologue introduces us to the major character of the story that follows, and gives a brief synopsis of what that story is all about.  So, what is John telling us in his prologue?

            First, John introduces us to “The Word”.  The Word is not yet identified as Jesus – that will become apparent a little later, but the first thing that John wants us to know is that in the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God.  Here, John intentionally echoes the words of Genesis 1 as he speaks of the beginning; the time when nothing yet existed.  A time that, according to the second verse in the Bible, the earth was formless and void.  God existed before anything in our universe was created, and at that time The Word was already with Him.  The Father and the Word are equally co-existent.  And when the act of creation began, how did creation come into being?  What happened?  What does the Bible tell us about how creation began?  Genesis tells us that God SAID “Let there be light”.  It was God’s WORD that caused the light to happen.  God planned the universe, but it was the Word, that literally spoke it into existence.  This is why John tells us that “All things came into being through [the Word], and without [the Word] not one thing [would have come] into being.”  This person, who so far is only identified as “The Word”, is the actual, in fact, creator of the universe.  The relationship of the trinity is a mystery, and it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend, but John makes it crystal clear in his prologue that the Father and the Word are one.  One God.

            John continues his prologue introducing us to John the Baptist, and it is here that John states the purpose of his Gospel.  John tells us that John the Baptist “came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through [that light] all might believe.”  John repeats this idea towards the end of his Gospel when he says in chapter 20 “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believethat Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  John’s purpose is to introduce us to God, in the person of Jesus Christ, that in coming to know Him, we may know God.  And that in coming to know God, we may have life in his name.

            So, how does this all work?  Well, like John, let’s start with the Word.  What is a word anyway?  A word is an audible or written expression of an idea.  If I were to say the word “banana”, I would have expressed a word with which we can all identify.  We will immediately have in our minds the image of a banana.  And so, when we speak of God’s Word, we are actually talking about the idea of the physical manifestation of all that God is.  God sent the Word in order to reveal Himself to us.  Edward W. Klink III tells us that the “’Word’ reflects the truth that it is the very nature of God to reveal Himself”. [1]

            Next, John tells us that this “’Word’ became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  And we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  God is revealed to us in His entirety, in the Son, who is the fully human, yet fully divine and complete image of God.  Everything God is, the Son is.  This God, who created the universe, and created us, has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the person of the Son, Jesus.

            I would like to step away from John’s Gospel for just a moment so I can say something about this Son who is full of grace and truth.  Way back in Exodus 33, Moses asked God if God would allow him to see God’s glory.  God’s response to Moses was that He would cause His goodness to pass in front of Moses.  God’s glory is His goodness!  The grace that forgives, the truth that reveals, the love that abounds, the glory of God is to be found in His goodness.  And THIS is the glory of the one and only Son.  That His goodness is one and the same with His Father’s goodness. 

            The more we learn about Jesus, and through Him, the more we learn about the Father, the more we understand this picture of a God who loves us and is relentless in revealing His love for us in the hope that we may choose to receive His love, and to love Him in return.  Warren Wiersbe says, “Just as the first creation began with ‘Let there be light’, so the new creation begins with the entrance of light into the heart of the believer.” [2]

            But John hasn’t finished his prologue yet, and some of the rest of the story isn’t such good news.  John tells us that “[Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  In other words, the beloved refuse to love and the created reject their creator.  Warren Wiersbe again, “Whenever Jesus taught a spiritual truth, His listeners interpreted it in a material or physical way.  The light was unable to penetrate the darkness in their minds.”[3]  As unfathomable as it is to me, some will reject the Good News.  They will refuse to hear it, or refuse to believe it, or refuse to even consider it.  And I believe that the worst part of that rejection is the fact that, those who die without Jesus will spend the rest of eternity in that total darkness about which we spoke.  Unable to be productive, unable to function, unable to accomplish anything of value. 

Now, the last thing in all the world that I want to be is a fire and brimstone preacher.  I often say that we don’t serve a God of retribution, we serve a God of reconciliation.  It isn’t God’s desire to smite those who reject Him, but the sad fact is that there are some who will, and it is they themselves who will make the choice to live in darkness.

            But to those who do receive Him, we are given the right to become children of God.  Karl Kuhn says, “John’s exaltation of Jesus as the transcendent Word is only one side of the story. The other is his claim that the Divine Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. John’s exaltation of Jesus to unimaginable heights of transcendence serves his even more crucial interest of proclaiming that in Jesus, the barrier between the divine and human realms are breached to a degree never before realized. In the Word, John claims, God’s mercy and truth now flow in measures never possible before: “from his fullness, we receive grace upon grace”.[4]

            God came to reclaim the world that He created and the people that He loves.  God’s mission, as He has chosen to pursue it through the work of Jesus, is, as I just said, not one of retribution, but one of reconciliation.  It is God’s desire that none of His beloved children be lost, but that all be saved.  To that end, He has sent Jesus to show us God’s glory.  A glory that will be revealed in His goodness, His forgiveness, His compassion, His patience, and His love. 

            My dear friends, let us step into the light of that goodness and live as children of the light.

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[1] Edward W. Klink III, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 88

[2] Warren Wiersbe, “Be Alive”, Pg. 12.

[3] Warren Wiersbe, “Be Alive”, Pg. 13

[4] Karl Kuhn, WorkingPreacher.org: Commentary on John 1:1-18