When you look up at a night sky away from cities and light pollution, and see all the billions of stars, it can give you perspective on our small size in the midst of the massive universe. It is an indication that there is much more in the universe than we run into in our day to day lives.
John’s gospel is very much about perspective. It provides a very different perspective than Matthew, Mark and Luke, the synoptic gospels. John is all about Jesus’ nature: who He is and how he relates to other people. John’s gospel is the most clear that Jesus is 100% God. It has a developed Christology that may be the result of being written later than others, once Christians had an opportunity to reflect on the implications of everything.
The gospel opens with the startling assertion that this man Jesus, son of a carpenter from a small town in Palestine, was present at the creation of the universe. He is the one who hung those stars in the sky, speaking of perspective. This is a key belief of Christianity, and also one opposed from early days, by Arians in the fourth century and by Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. But the gospel of John makes it very clear that Jesus was fully divine and fully man. We sometimes take for granted the wildness of this claim. Imagine working as a construction worker next to someone who claimed to be God.
The opening of John echos the opening of Genesis. “In the beginning…” In Genesis, God speaks a word and brings the world into existence. In John, Jesus himself is the Word. In Genesis, light is the first thing created. In John, Jesus himself is the light. In Genesis, Elohim is clearly set apart as the only God, the creator of the universe and far greater than the gods and goddesses of the surrounding cultures. In John, Jesus is the exclusive path to Elohim.
John also opens with a clearly universal message – that path, though exclusive, is open to all. Unlike the Law, which came through the same Torah where we find Genesis, Jesus is full of the grace and truth we need in order to follow that path. This is the perspective John provides.
How does looking at the world from this perspective impact us when times are good or when they are bad? We live in a time-oriented culture, which can mean that we run from activity to activity and lose this bigger perspective even when times are good, and certainly when times are bad. As we as a church go through a difficult season, we need to acknowledge and talk about the pain and grief we are going through. But we also should have perspective that the same Jesus who created the stars created Seed Church, and He is full of grace and truth.
As we open 2019, consider what you have always wanted a church to do and be? Do you have a dream or vision of a ministry at the church? Things will change in the world and in our church, and change is hard. But one thing that will not change is the perspective outlined here in the opening of John. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and He offers us the opportunity to become Children of God.
– Sermon Notes, Dave Lester, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, January 6, 2019
John 1:1-18
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