[00:00] John chapter 1 verse 6, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
[00:17] He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe.
[00:24] He himself was not the light.
[00:26] He only came as a witness to the light.
[00:29] The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
[00:34] He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize
[00:39] him.
[00:41] He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
[00:46] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:52] You can have a seat.
[00:56] This is something that occasionally happens as a pastor.
[01:01] You realize you wore the same clothes you wore on the video shoot day.
[01:09] I got more than this, just so you know.
[01:15] So if you were around last Sunday, we read the first five verses of John chapter 1.
[01:20] We picked up right where we left off.
[01:22] That is the intent each week as we lead up to Christmas.
[01:26] We're going to build and build.
[01:28] We're ringing out the first 14 verses of John's gospel for everything they're worth.
[01:33] And the punchline, the place that we're driving toward as we move up to Christmas
[01:38] is this, the word became flesh.
[01:43] William Barclay calls that phrase from John chapter 1, possibly the greatest single
[01:47] verse in the New Testament, and certainly the sentence for which John wrote his gospel.
[01:53] But how John gets there provides the context necessary for understanding the profundity
[01:58] and audacity of that claim, so we're going to move slowly, spending this advent season
[02:04] in just 14 verses.
[02:06] Now Hakim got us off to a brilliant start last week, and today we're going to make
[02:09] our way through the deep weeds of John chapter 1.
[02:12] So as an anchor for you to hold to as we make our way through these movements,
[02:17] as this single statement, glorious promises grounded in reality.
[02:24] That's those 11 verses in the statement.
[02:26] Glorious promises grounded in reality.
[02:28] We'll take that phrase in two parts, and we're going to start by retreading on
[02:31] some familiar ground from last week.
[02:34] So if you don't have your Bible open, open it to John chapter 1.
[02:36] I'm going to pick up right in verse 1.
[02:39] So when I say it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
[02:44] What do you think of?
[02:48] Yeah, I mean, I can't tell what you're saying, but I'm assuming you're saying
[02:51] a tale of two cities, right, Charles Dickens?
[02:55] Come a little louder for this one.
[02:56] Call me Ishmael.
[02:59] Moby Dick.
[03:00] How about this?
[03:02] Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four Privet Drive were proud to say that
[03:05] they were perfectly normal.
[03:06] Thank you very much.
[03:09] Harry Potter, slightly more lowbrow in the literary community,
[03:12] but arguably more magical.
[03:15] Let's do one more.
[03:16] Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.
[03:23] Does anyone know what that's called?
[03:26] No, it's called a visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarkmore.
[03:30] I also thought it was from Twas the night before Christmas.
[03:34] It might be time for a rebrand, a second printing or something.
[03:37] Now, the point is that all of those are famous opening lines.
[03:42] When you hear those words, they take you somewhere,
[03:44] they transport you into a particular narrative
[03:47] and a particular reality.
[03:48] So if I were to stand before you in a room like this,
[03:51] when I dropped the line Twas the night before Christmas,
[03:53] I would obviously be doing so intentionally
[03:56] to take you somewhere in your imagination.
[03:59] And that is exactly what the apostle John was doing
[04:03] in the opening line of his gospel.
[04:05] In the beginning was the word.
[04:08] In the beginning is a loaded phrase.
[04:10] Those are the first words in the Bible.
[04:11] They're the opening line of the story
[04:13] that the Jews have grounded their lives and culture
[04:15] in for thousands of years.
[04:17] The opening lines of the very story
[04:19] that's carried them from slavery to deliverance
[04:21] to prosperity to exile,
[04:23] those are the words that they would have recited
[04:25] in the temple since childhood.
[04:27] That might be the most distinct phrase
[04:29] in the whole of the Hebrew language
[04:31] and he just opened with it.
[04:34] Now John is a Jew.
[04:35] He knows exactly what he's doing.
[04:38] If he were doing a book launch reading
[04:39] for his new gospel that Jerusalem equivalent to Powell's,
[04:42] I imagine he would have paused here
[04:44] just to let it land in the beginning was the word.
[04:50] Something like that.
[04:51] Because with that phrase,
[04:53] every Jew who picked up John's biography of Jesus
[04:55] would have immediately thought,
[04:57] oh, he's telling our story.
[05:01] In the beginning was the word
[05:03] or was the logos in Greek.
[05:05] This is the language it was originally written in.
[05:07] That is just as loaded.
[05:09] Because logos is the foundational term
[05:11] of Stoic Greek philosophy.
[05:12] Logos means the rational principle
[05:15] by which everything existed.
[05:17] It was the common foundation
[05:19] that makes rational sense of the world.
[05:21] So philosophy is all about deconstruction
[05:23] of everything that we assume to be true
[05:25] to get down to the very essence of what is.
[05:27] And logos was the floor of philosophical deconstruction.
[05:31] It was a term that the Greek Stoics would use to say
[05:34] if we strip life down to its very essence,
[05:37] there's something at the core
[05:38] holding this whole thing together.
[05:40] There's something that makes existence possible.
[05:43] Whatever that something is,
[05:44] let's agree to call it logos.
[05:47] And so they did.
[05:48] Now again, John knows what he's doing.
[05:50] By the time he wrote to this,
[05:52] there's 100,000 Greek-speaking Christians
[05:55] for every one Jewish Christian.
[05:57] That is how the extent to which
[05:59] the early church had spread through the Roman Empire.
[06:01] So with the word logos,
[06:03] every Greek who picks up John's biography of Jesus
[06:06] would immediately think,
[06:08] oh, he's telling our story.
[06:12] This is the best way I know to show you
[06:14] what John has just done in these six words.
[06:17] Imagine that you're at a holiday cocktail party.
[06:19] It's one where you were invited by a friend.
[06:21] You don't really know the other people there.
[06:23] And the worst thing imaginable happens.
[06:25] You arrive first
[06:27] and your friend's running five minutes behind.
[06:29] So what do you do?
[06:30] You grab a beverage and mingle.
[06:32] And by mingle, I mean you grab on
[06:36] to that first little conversation cluster.
[06:38] You can find room to fit yourself in physically.
[06:41] Because mingling is like being lost at sea.
[06:44] And every little conversation is a life raft.
[06:46] It doesn't matter which one you get on.
[06:49] You're just drowning out there, right?
[06:51] So you find your way into one of those
[06:54] and five minutes into that conversation
[06:56] that you're using as a life raft,
[06:58] you hear someone in another conversation
[07:00] across the room get everybody laughing
[07:03] with the story that you're telling.
[07:04] So it gets your attention.
[07:06] And then you hear them bring up the town
[07:08] that you grew up in.
[07:10] And then you hear them name your childhood best friend
[07:13] by first and last name.
[07:16] What do you do?
[07:17] You immediately start figuring out
[07:19] when you can get off of this life raft
[07:21] and swim to that one.
[07:23] Because someone over there is telling your story
[07:27] and you want in on that.
[07:28] John just did that to the entire Greco-Roman world
[07:31] in six words.
[07:32] You got to admit, this guy is good.
[07:38] He's telling all of our story.
[07:41] And it's the oldest story.
[07:44] The opening paragraph of John's Gospel
[07:46] runs parallel to the creation account in Genesis.
[07:49] In the beginning was the word
[07:50] and the word was with God and the word was God.
[07:54] They were together and they were the same.
[07:56] The Lagos, the core philosophical principle
[07:59] was with the Theos, the divine being.
[08:02] In fact, the Lagos is the Theos.
[08:05] I know.
[08:07] But this is more than just philosophical mumbling.
[08:09] John is taking the apex of Greek academic thought
[08:13] and he's placing it within the Hebrew Torah
[08:15] to make the most substantial claim
[08:17] for the very foundation of our existence.
[08:19] The principle that holds the whole world together
[08:24] is a person.
[08:26] Now of course the Bible does not have a monopoly
[08:29] on theories around life's origin and meaning.
[08:31] The ancient Greek world had plenty of creation stories
[08:34] and the primary theme that ran through
[08:36] all of the other ones was power.
[08:39] They all went something like this.
[08:40] There was an epic battle in the pantheon of the gods
[08:44] in the heavens, one God won
[08:46] and then all the others fell into rank beneath that God.
[08:48] That God who had rightfully claimed the throne
[08:51] is now the powerful creator
[08:53] of all that we know and exist and experience.
[08:56] John's summary of Genesis was the word was with God
[08:59] and the word was God.
[09:00] So he is proposing this theory
[09:03] that there was in the beginning a triune God
[09:06] that lived in a perfect communion of love
[09:08] and God experienced selfless love
[09:11] and the desire to share that love with another
[09:13] a little bit like a married couple
[09:15] who looks at one another one day and says,
[09:16] you know, this love that we're sharing
[09:18] between the two of us is so good.
[09:20] What about if a little bit of me
[09:22] and a little bit of you could come together
[09:24] to create another
[09:25] and then we could direct the love
[09:26] that we share at that other.
[09:29] So the core principle of the biblical creation story
[09:32] is one of love, not power.
[09:36] In the beginning, there was power.
[09:37] That's the foundation of all of the other stories.
[09:40] In the beginning, there was love.
[09:42] That's a profoundly different starting place.
[09:45] John opens his account of Jesus' life
[09:48] not with a nativity scene.
[09:49] And I know that that's going to be disappointing
[09:51] to some of you.
[09:53] But instead, he does it by pulling the whole world
[09:55] into the oldest story ever told
[09:57] to propose the most substantial foundation
[09:59] for life that's ever been offered.
[10:01] And he offers it to Jews and Greeks,
[10:03] to philosophy professors, and to illiterate peasants.
[10:06] The guiding principle that makes all of existence possible.
[10:09] The principle that holds the whole world together
[10:11] and the principle that holds you together
[10:14] is a person defined by love.
[10:18] This is more than just rehashing the past
[10:21] or rewriting Genesis.
[10:23] John is drawing Jew and Greek together
[10:25] to make a claim that both the temple and the Parthenon
[10:28] are going to find offensive or intriguing
[10:31] or probably both.
[10:34] The oldest story has a second chapter.
[10:39] Let's look back at our Bibles now
[10:40] and pick up in verse four.
[10:42] In him was life, and that life was the light
[10:45] of all mankind.
[10:46] The light shines out in the darkness
[10:49] and the darkness has not overcome it.
[10:51] So Genesis opens with nothing but darkness.
[10:53] It's formless and void.
[10:54] And then God's opening line of dialogue
[10:56] in his own script is let there be light.
[10:59] And then light floods the darkness
[11:00] and the rest of creation follows.
[11:02] God said it and then it came to be.
[11:04] John then calls Jesus the light of all mankind.
[11:08] In the beginning, God said it and it came to be.
[11:10] There is no separation between God's speech
[11:14] and God's action.
[11:15] What he says is what really is.
[11:18] That'll matter for you later.
[11:20] Now I said a minute ago that John doesn't bother
[11:23] with the nativity scene.
[11:24] That isn't entirely true.
[11:25] He just sums it up really tightly like this.
[11:27] The light shines out in the darkness.
[11:30] That's his birth story.
[11:33] In the beginning, there was a God loving enough
[11:35] to share that love with the likes of us.
[11:37] And there's still a God that loving.
[11:39] Loving enough to enter into the darkened creation.
[11:42] To enter into the darkened creation.
[11:44] To start a new creation right here in the infected soil.
[11:48] So here is John's opening scene
[11:50] of the second chapter of the oldest story.
[11:53] The creator is the re-creator.
[11:58] The one who breathed on the chaos
[12:00] bringing order also gasped for breath
[12:02] between newborn infant screams.
[12:05] The one who spoke creation into being
[12:07] also babbles like a baby.
[12:10] The one who said let there be light
[12:13] also walks along the Sea of Galilee and says follow me.
[12:18] And the one for whom whose speech creates.
[12:21] The one for whom there is no separation
[12:23] between what he says and what really truly is.
[12:26] Now says over you, forgiven, redeemed, welcomed, trusted.
[12:35] See when he calls you mine, it's not a sentiment.
[12:38] It's not even a desire.
[12:40] It's what really unchangeably is.
[12:45] The creator has entered into his own creation
[12:47] to go on creating.
[12:49] The creator is the re-creator.
[12:53] That's the claim and it's more than a claim
[12:55] and it's more than a sentiment
[12:57] and it's more than a seasonal feeling.
[12:59] It's real.
[13:01] I've seen it.
[13:03] I once sat by a fire pit in a late summer evening
[13:07] and watched the last bits of the sunset
[13:09] come and land over the horizon.
[13:11] He's the creator.
[13:13] And I sat there across from a friend
[13:15] who was celebrating seven years sober
[13:16] and was more alive in Christ
[13:18] than he'd ever been on a bender.
[13:19] Re-creator.
[13:21] Can you see it?
[13:22] I've laid on a rooftop in Kenya at midnight
[13:25] gazing up at the stars above me,
[13:26] brighter than any stars I've ever seen.
[13:28] Creator.
[13:29] And I was laying on the roof of an orphanage
[13:31] for young girls who had been rescued
[13:33] from forced prostitution
[13:34] and were having their childhoods
[13:36] and their innocence redeemed and restored.
[13:38] Re-creator.
[13:39] Do you see that?
[13:41] I've walked laps around a snow-covered park
[13:44] in New York City
[13:45] where a blanket of white can come down
[13:47] on dead trees and dirty sidewalks
[13:49] and make it look more beautiful
[13:50] than any painting.
[13:51] Creator.
[13:52] And I've walked those laps
[13:54] next to a single mother
[13:57] who had left an abusive relationship
[14:00] and then discovered true relationship
[14:03] in Jesus in her mid-40s
[14:05] and was finally coming alive
[14:06] and being dignified.
[14:07] Re-creator.
[14:09] I have driven miles through farmland
[14:12] with the windows rolled down
[14:13] under the perfect summer sun.
[14:15] Creator.
[14:17] And in the passenger seat next to me
[14:18] sat Ramon,
[14:20] a young man of color
[14:21] from low-income housing
[14:22] whose father was behind bars,
[14:24] a statistic waiting to happen.
[14:26] But I was driving him to college,
[14:28] the first in his family
[14:29] to ever cross that threshold.
[14:31] And it was all because
[14:32] his life turned on the dime
[14:33] of discovering
[14:34] that there was a truer father
[14:35] who knew him first
[14:36] and who would never leave.
[14:38] Re-creator.
[14:39] I could keep on going, yes.
[14:41] I could keep going.
[14:42] It comes in every variety
[14:44] you can imagine.
[14:45] But we got to keep moving
[14:47] through the text.
[14:47] So let's just sum it up here.
[14:49] The creator is the recreator.
[14:51] The light shines out in the darkness.
[14:54] And the darkness has not overcome it.
[14:56] That's not a metaphor.
[14:58] That's a promise.
[15:01] True detective is a television show
[15:03] that I cannot in good conscience
[15:04] recommend to you.
[15:07] It is vulgar and crude,
[15:08] and it's totally unwatchable
[15:10] most of the way through.
[15:12] But it does have one of the more
[15:14] poetic endings
[15:15] that I've ever seen
[15:16] to a television show.
[15:18] And the final scene,
[15:19] which gives nothing away
[15:20] about the story,
[15:21] relax.
[15:23] But the final scene,
[15:25] and Marty pushes Rust,
[15:27] who's played by Matthew McConaughey
[15:28] out of the hospital
[15:29] in a wheelchair
[15:30] for a breath of fresh air.
[15:31] And looking up at the stars
[15:33] with the cigarette hanging off his lips,
[15:34] Rust has tears welled up
[15:36] behind his eyes,
[15:37] and he says,
[15:38] I tell you, Marty,
[15:42] I've been laying in that room
[15:43] looking out that window every night
[15:46] thinking there's just one story,
[15:49] the oldest.
[15:52] Oh yeah, what's that?
[15:55] Light versus dark.
[15:57] And then Marty looks up at the stars
[16:00] and then back at Rust and says,
[16:03] it appears to me the dark's got
[16:04] a lot more territory.
[16:07] And then there's a long pause,
[16:11] and he says,
[16:12] you know, you're looking at it wrong,
[16:14] the sky thing,
[16:17] because once there was only dark.
[16:19] So if you ask me,
[16:21] the light's winning.
[16:24] Now I am aware
[16:26] of the many, many dangers
[16:28] in comparing the Apostle John
[16:30] to Matthew McConaughey.
[16:35] That being said,
[16:38] you got to admit,
[16:39] that does sound a whole lot like
[16:40] the light shines out in the darkness,
[16:43] and the darkness has not overcome it.
[16:45] It appears to me the darkness
[16:47] has a lot more territory.
[16:48] Yeah, but you're looking at it wrong,
[16:50] because once there was only dark.
[16:52] So if you ask me,
[16:54] the light's winning.
[16:55] The light's winning.
[16:58] The light shines out in the darkness,
[17:00] and the darkness has not overcome it.
[17:03] It's not a metaphor.
[17:04] That's a promise, friends.
[17:07] And what if it's not just a statement
[17:09] about the ultimate fate of creation,
[17:10] but what if it's also a statement
[17:11] about the present state
[17:13] of your one single life?
[17:16] That's what makes the very next verse
[17:19] such good news.
[17:21] Let's continue reading.
[17:22] There was a man sent from God
[17:24] whose name was John.
[17:26] Now here's what I respect about John's gospel
[17:28] and about the whole of Scripture
[17:29] for that matter.
[17:30] It does not let you stay in the stars for long.
[17:34] He wants you to know how good it is,
[17:36] so he lays that out
[17:37] as poetically as he can
[17:38] in just a few words.
[17:39] The creator is the recreator,
[17:42] but as soon as he's got you there,
[17:44] he brings those promises crashing down to earth.
[17:46] The light shines out in the darkness,
[17:49] and the darkness has not overcome it.
[17:52] So there's this guy named John.
[17:54] Well, that was a quick turn.
[17:58] What was cosmic and heavenly just a moment ago
[18:01] has now come crashing down into your ribcage
[18:04] in that insistently personal way
[18:06] that the relational God
[18:07] will not let us get away from.
[18:09] The true light that gives light
[18:11] to everyone was coming into the world.
[18:13] It really is that glorious.
[18:15] There was this guy sent from John,
[18:17] or this guy sent from God's name is John.
[18:20] It really is that grounded.
[18:23] Glorious promises grounded in reality.
[18:28] There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
[18:31] He came as a witness to testify concerning the light
[18:34] so that through him all might believe.
[18:36] So Jesus comes with a witness.
[18:39] Why didn't God just send Jesus and Genesis 4?
[18:43] I mean, why not send the Redeemer right after the fall?
[18:45] Why do we even have the countless generations
[18:47] and thousands of years
[18:48] that we call the Old Testament?
[18:50] If you're going to redeem it,
[18:52] what's taken you so long?
[18:53] If you're holding the ace,
[18:54] why are you slow playing your hand?
[18:56] You know what I'm saying?
[18:57] Have you ever wondered about that?
[19:00] Because the level of gift that God was giving us
[19:02] in making his being into our flesh
[19:05] required significant preparation.
[19:08] That's the Old Testament pattern,
[19:10] is that this gift is so big
[19:12] that it requires preparation.
[19:13] And we see that played out again and again and again.
[19:16] Just take, for example, Joseph.
[19:19] God's got big plans for his life
[19:21] and he's got a killer robe with many colors.
[19:25] Maybe you know his story.
[19:27] His brothers threw him into a well
[19:29] and then left him for dead.
[19:30] It seems like God has forgotten him
[19:32] year after year after year after year
[19:35] from that point forward.
[19:36] He's trafficked, enslaved, falsely accused, imprisoned.
[19:40] Why not just pull him out of the well, God?
[19:43] If you're going to redeem his story,
[19:45] what's taking you so long?
[19:46] Because all those years of darkness
[19:48] were necessary preparation
[19:50] for the light to break through,
[19:51] for the most profound, far-reaching kind of redemption
[19:55] when he would be reunited with the Father
[19:56] who loves and longs for communion with him
[19:59] and reconciled to the siblings
[20:00] that he has broken, fractured relationship with.
[20:03] And you know who that sounds like?
[20:06] Jesus reconciled with the Father
[20:10] and reunited with brothers and sisters.
[20:11] This is the Old Testament pattern.
[20:13] The level of gift that God is giving us
[20:15] is so significant that it requires significant preparation
[20:19] in order for us to recognize it
[20:21] when it's right in front of us
[20:22] and then receive it as our very own.
[20:25] And John is the last in a long line of witnesses
[20:29] who prepared the way for Jesus.
[20:31] Cue Matthew chapter three.
[20:34] In those days, John the Baptist came
[20:36] preaching in the wilderness of Judea
[20:38] and saying,
[20:38] Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
[20:41] And Matthew explains Jesus' identity
[20:43] by quoting a prophecy from Isaiah.
[20:45] And in fact, it's not just Matthew.
[20:48] All four gospels quote this very line
[20:51] from the prophet Isaiah
[20:52] to explain the identity of John the Baptist.
[20:54] And that puts this in very, very exclusive biblical company.
[20:59] Isaiah was pointing ahead to the last
[21:01] in a long line of witnesses,
[21:03] the one who would make the way
[21:04] for the Savior to come.
[21:06] And then Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all agree.
[21:08] And his name is John the Baptist.
[21:11] Now let's keep reading.
[21:12] He himself was not the light.
[21:14] He came only as a witness to the light.
[21:16] So there's only one light.
[21:19] But there is a life that exposes the dark
[21:21] for what it really is.
[21:23] There's a way that we can live in this world
[21:26] that does not belong to this world.
[21:28] There's a kind of life that exposes this world
[21:30] as a place of promises that it can't keep.
[21:33] And if you want to know that life,
[21:35] just look at John, not the author,
[21:37] the one they call John the Baptist.
[21:40] Now a few verses later we read.
[21:42] Now this was John's testimony
[21:44] when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem
[21:46] sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.
[21:49] All four Gospels record this part too,
[21:51] that the priests came to check out John.
[21:54] There's some wilderness baptizer
[21:56] who's drawing a big crowd.
[21:58] And so they took their day off
[21:59] to go check him out and hear him preach.
[22:02] And John is the son of a Levite priest.
[22:05] His mother is also a descendant
[22:06] from the Levitical priesthood.
[22:08] He has been steeped in the priestly tradition
[22:11] his entire life.
[22:13] And these aren't just any priests
[22:14] coming to hear him.
[22:15] We're talking about Sadducees and Pharisees,
[22:18] the most elite groups of priests,
[22:20] the best of the best.
[22:21] They've come to hear him preach.
[22:25] I mean this is the kind of audience
[22:26] John's father would have dreamed of having
[22:28] for one of his sermons
[22:30] and they're coming miles into the wilderness
[22:32] to hear you.
[22:34] This is John's moment to prove himself.
[22:36] It's his moment to show them
[22:38] that he belongs to wow his most impressive peers.
[22:42] David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece
[22:44] for the Times a few years ago
[22:45] pointing out that today's generation
[22:47] of young adults are phenomenally
[22:49] accomplished and deeply insecure
[22:51] at the same time.
[22:53] And he notes that much of the West
[22:55] in their 20s, 30s, and 40s
[22:57] have accomplished more in the first half
[22:58] of life than most previous generations
[23:00] accomplished in the whole of life.
[23:02] But a generation of recognized
[23:04] and decorated high achievers
[23:06] is also a generation of emotionally fragile,
[23:09] inwardly insecure high achievers.
[23:11] Why is that?
[23:13] Why isn't accomplishment and pursuit
[23:15] and achievement producing confidence?
[23:17] Why is it only cloaking fragility?
[23:20] Well, the sociologist David Riesman
[23:22] saw this coming all the way back in the 60s
[23:24] when he wrote,
[23:25] as adult authority disintegrates
[23:27] the young are more and more captives
[23:29] of each other.
[23:30] When adult control disappears
[23:31] the young's control of each other intensifies.
[23:35] And he was talking about a shift
[23:36] that was coming and even beginning then
[23:38] when deriving identity
[23:41] through the approval of authority figures
[23:43] was going away and being replaced
[23:44] by deriving identity through the approval
[23:46] of my peers.
[23:48] So there was a time
[23:49] and it wasn't that long ago
[23:50] when parents, teachers, role models,
[23:53] elders held authority.
[23:55] So I feel smart when my teacher
[23:57] gives me a good grade
[23:58] or I feel important when
[24:00] a person of authority
[24:02] takes interest in me.
[24:04] I'm secure when I'm loved by my parents
[24:06] and that had its own issues
[24:08] but they're not the issues
[24:09] of today's modern young adult.
[24:11] Because in a time we live in
[24:15] the elder has been replaced
[24:16] by the peer as the new standard.
[24:19] So if my CEO doesn't think
[24:21] I have potential
[24:21] then he can be dismissed
[24:22] as a power drunk tonal vision
[24:24] authoritative dictator
[24:25] who doesn't get me.
[24:27] Or if my mom or an old mentor
[24:29] or the direct supervisor
[24:30] at my old office
[24:32] thinks that I'm out of bounds
[24:33] so be it
[24:34] but if that small group of friends
[24:36] to which I belong
[24:37] makes me feel excluded
[24:39] that's unbearable.
[24:41] Not living up to the standard
[24:42] of an authority figure
[24:43] is called disobedience
[24:44] and I can live with that.
[24:45] Not living up to the standard
[24:46] of my friends is called rejection
[24:48] and I'm paralyzed by that.
[24:51] Henry Nowan says
[24:52] many young people
[24:53] may even be enslaved
[24:54] by the tyranny of their peers.
[24:57] And the real trouble
[24:58] with needing the approval
[24:59] of my peers
[25:00] is it robs me of the ability
[25:01] to love my peers.
[25:04] Right, if I need you
[25:06] to affirm me,
[25:07] to like me,
[25:08] to make me feel okay
[25:09] then I'm performing for you.
[25:12] And that robs me of compassion.
[25:14] It robs me of the freedom
[25:15] to see you,
[25:16] hear you,
[25:17] know you,
[25:18] and ultimately to love you.
[25:21] So my accomplishments
[25:22] may cloak my outward appearance
[25:23] but inwardly I'm emotionally fragile,
[25:25] deeply insecure,
[25:26] and always teetering
[25:27] on the edge of rejection.
[25:28] That's the common condition
[25:30] of the young adult today
[25:31] but not John.
[25:33] John is approached by the peers
[25:35] that he should want approval from
[25:37] that he should want to impress,
[25:38] the circle that he's supposed to
[25:40] want in on
[25:41] and he doesn't perform.
[25:43] He witnesses.
[25:45] I'm not the light.
[25:48] I'm just here to expose the dark
[25:50] so you can recognize the light
[25:51] when he shows up.
[25:53] Don't you see how free he is?
[25:56] He is not preoccupied
[25:57] with impressing
[25:58] the gatekeepers of his success.
[26:01] John can look to the people
[26:02] that he should crave approval
[26:03] from the most
[26:04] right in the eye
[26:05] and then offer them
[26:06] the very same invitation
[26:07] that he's been giving to the peasants.
[26:09] I'm not the light.
[26:09] I'm just here to prepare a way for the light
[26:11] but you can come into these waters
[26:13] and be baptized
[26:14] so that you can truly see
[26:15] when he shows up.
[26:17] John was free
[26:19] and people that free
[26:20] are dangerous.
[26:22] They're a threat
[26:23] to the kingdom of this world
[26:24] and to the status quo.
[26:25] That's why they paved the way
[26:27] for the kingdom of God to come.
[26:29] See if you can live the same way
[26:31] in front of your CEO
[26:32] and your best friend
[26:33] because your identity
[26:34] is not dependent on either one
[26:36] of their approval of you
[26:38] then you've become dangerous.
[26:40] Or if you can sit with a friend
[26:41] over margaritas and chips
[26:43] and then sit with the same friend
[26:44] over a glass of water
[26:46] and have exactly the same experience
[26:48] because your motive
[26:49] is relational love
[26:50] not self-indulgence
[26:52] then you've become dangerous
[26:54] because the cravings
[26:55] and appetites of this world
[26:56] have lost their grip on you.
[26:58] So you can crave the world
[26:59] that is to come.
[27:00] What if we actually believed
[27:03] that freedom from the appetites
[27:04] of this world
[27:05] was more satisfying
[27:06] than getting everything we want.
[27:08] What a gift we might be to Portland then
[27:11] or what if we actually rooted ourselves
[27:14] so deeply in his intimacy
[27:15] that we were free enough
[27:16] that we could love our neighbor.
[27:18] What a threat we might be
[27:19] to the status quo then
[27:21] in the best kind of way.
[27:23] That is a life that exposes the dark.
[27:25] So witnessing is about freedom.
[27:30] But there's another scene
[27:32] one that comes later in John's life
[27:33] that shows us that
[27:34] witnessing is also about waiting.
[27:38] Matthew chapter 11 says this.
[27:40] When John who was in prison
[27:43] heard about the deeds of the Messiah
[27:45] he sent his disciples to ask him
[27:47] are you the one who is to come
[27:49] or should we expect someone else?
[27:53] This is John the Baptist crisis of faith.
[27:57] Years later John's being held
[27:58] in a prison cell in Jerusalem
[27:59] without just cause
[28:00] and so he sends a message to Jesus.
[28:02] Are you really the guy
[28:05] or should we be looking for somebody else?
[28:08] Now what's behind that question?
[28:11] I've gone all in on the glorious promises.
[28:14] I thought the light was here
[28:15] to push back the dark
[28:16] and it was looking promising
[28:18] for quite a while there
[28:19] but now I'm looking at the four walls
[28:21] and metal bars of a prison cell
[28:23] thinking how can this be it?
[28:27] So are you really the guy
[28:29] or should we be looking
[28:30] for someone else?
[28:31] Is this it?
[28:38] Everything significant that God
[28:39] does in this world and in us
[28:41] it involves long stretches of waiting.
[28:44] Why? Because these promises
[28:46] don't stay in the stars.
[28:48] They get grounded down here
[28:49] in reality
[28:51] and the reality of this world
[28:53] includes things like delay,
[28:55] pain, loss, disappointment
[28:58] and unmet expectations.
[29:00] Are you the one who is to come
[29:02] or should we look for someone else?
[29:04] I thought the light was here
[29:05] to push back the dark
[29:06] but how can a cop behind bars
[29:08] possibly be part of the plan?
[29:10] How can redemption hurt this much?
[29:14] Is this it?
[29:17] We know that question.
[29:20] You don't get very far into a life of faith
[29:22] or just into life itself for that matter
[29:24] without asking your own version
[29:26] of the question
[29:28] how can this possibly be it?
[29:34] Now John's given himself to redemption.
[29:36] I mean he was a witness first
[29:37] by freedom
[29:38] but now he's being invited
[29:39] to grow into maybe even a
[29:41] more mature witness by waiting
[29:45] and we are all too familiar
[29:47] with the waiting
[29:47] that this life in this world deals us
[29:51] with another round of resumes
[29:53] to send out
[29:54] or another round of chemo.
[29:57] Another negative on another pregnancy test
[30:01] another underwhelming first date
[30:03] another specialist
[30:05] another great winter day
[30:06] another shift at the same old job
[30:08] or another afternoon
[30:09] staring at the four walls of a prison cell
[30:11] just waiting for the night to come.
[30:13] How can this be it?
[30:17] How can redemption hurt this much?
[30:20] How can something as mundane
[30:22] or painful or disappointing
[30:23] as this possibly be part of something
[30:25] as grand as recreation?
[30:27] So are you the guy
[30:28] or should I start hoping in somebody
[30:30] or something else?
[30:32] Is this it?
[30:35] You know what it's like to ask that question?
[30:40] You asking some version of it now even?
[30:46] Psalm 131 paints a picture
[30:48] of the witnessing that happens in waiting.
[30:51] Verse two right in the middle says
[30:53] but I have calmed and quieted myself.
[30:55] I am like a weaned child with its mother
[30:58] like a weaned child.
[30:59] I am content.
[31:01] It's a memorable image.
[31:03] A weaned child is one that's no longer nursing
[31:05] and any parent of a newborn
[31:07] will tell you that a nursing child
[31:08] is controlled by his needs.
[31:11] Hungry, bloated, dirty, angry,
[31:14] every need is urgent
[31:16] and every need is communicated
[31:18] through screaming and kicking
[31:19] and crying until mom or dad figures out
[31:22] what need this is and meets it
[31:24] and then I can relax.
[31:27] But the only kind of peace experienced
[31:29] in infancy is brief and fleeting.
[31:30] It is the faux peace of having my need met,
[31:33] my discomfort relieved,
[31:34] my wait ended.
[31:36] But the weaned child
[31:39] knows his mother beyond the most urgent need.
[31:41] The weaned child has learned
[31:43] the deeper piece of his or her mother's presence.
[31:46] In other words, for the weaned child,
[31:48] they have discovered
[31:50] that peace is not the end of the wait.
[31:52] It is the presence of my mother
[31:54] with me in the waiting.
[31:57] Psalm 131 is one of the shortest Psalms.
[31:59] It's three verses long.
[32:00] You can read it in a second.
[32:02] Charles Spurgeon called it the shortest
[32:03] to read but slowest to learn.
[32:06] We bear witness to the light
[32:08] by learning the peace of God
[32:10] and trusting him in the midst of the dark.
[32:13] And Jesus preferred teaching metaphors
[32:15] were agricultural.
[32:16] He's constantly pointing out ways
[32:17] that the Creator has written divine lessons
[32:19] into the very soil that we live on.
[32:22] And it is a miserable farmer
[32:24] who plants a seed
[32:25] and then goes out day after day
[32:26] to anxiously look to see if it's working.
[32:30] Did it take, has the seed broken soil,
[32:33] will it really make good on its promise
[32:35] to go from this tiny little thing
[32:37] to growing into something
[32:38] that can nourish and satisfy?
[32:41] No, the farmer has to get used to the rhythm
[32:43] that every harvest requires waiting.
[32:46] That between planting and reaping,
[32:47] there are long stretches
[32:49] of cold, dark days
[32:51] when all the real work is happening
[32:52] and underground invisible to me.
[32:56] Every time a farmer sows a seed,
[32:58] it's an act of radical trust
[32:59] and every winter between planting and reaping,
[33:02] that farmer must know peace
[33:03] in the midst of darkness.
[33:05] Waiting is where we discover peace
[33:07] or get eaten alive by anxiety and toil.
[33:12] Peace, that elusive state that we're all after,
[33:14] it's ultimately not found in resolution.
[33:17] Peace is not the end of the wait
[33:19] because what I'm waiting on
[33:21] is just going to be replaced by another need
[33:23] and then another
[33:24] and the next one we'll feel as urgent as this one does.
[33:26] There's a deeper sort of peace,
[33:28] a variety of peace
[33:29] that cannot be taken by this world
[33:31] because it wasn't given by this world
[33:32] in its presence.
[33:34] Peace is God's presence in the midst of pain.
[33:37] It is not the absence of pain.
[33:39] It's God's presence here with me in the waiting,
[33:42] not the end of the wait.
[33:44] In her book, When the Heart Waits,
[33:46] Sue Munk Kidd describes a conversation
[33:48] that she once had with a monk.
[33:49] Where she was trying to learn
[33:51] the art of contemplative prayer.
[33:54] She says,
[33:55] I just can't get used to the idea of doing nothing.
[33:59] He broke into a wonderful grin.
[34:02] Well, there's the problem right there, young lady.
[34:05] You've bought into the cultural myth
[34:07] that when you're waiting, you're doing nothing.
[34:12] Then he took his hands
[34:12] and placed them on my shoulders.
[34:14] Peered straight into my eyes and said,
[34:16] I hope you'll hear what I'm about to tell you.
[34:19] I hope you'll hear it all the way down to your toes.
[34:21] When you're waiting, you're not doing nothing.
[34:25] You're doing the most important something there is.
[34:29] You're allowing your soul to grow up.
[34:32] If you can't be still and wait,
[34:34] you can't become who God created you to be.
[34:40] Trust, that's our part in this whole peace business.
[34:45] We give God trust and in return,
[34:47] He offers us peace.
[34:48] Waiting is the seed, the soil that seed grows in.
[34:53] So are you the one who is to come?
[34:55] Or should we be looking for someone else?
[34:59] Is this it?
[35:03] And Jesus sends a message back to John's prison cell.
[35:06] This is it.
[35:07] This is how I'm remaking the whole world.
[35:11] This is what it looks like when glorious promises
[35:15] come crashing down, grounded in reality.
[35:18] See, we do not have a God who's trying to build a new world
[35:21] while he ignores the current one.
[35:23] We have a God who is building a new world right here
[35:25] within the current one.
[35:26] He's planting seeds in the infected soil among the weeds.
[35:30] And that means that the arrival of this God
[35:33] includes things like delay, pain, loss,
[35:37] disappointment, and unmet expectations.
[35:40] It means that if you've ever asked questions like John's,
[35:43] you're in good company.
[35:44] You might even be on the verge of maturity.
[35:47] It means that if you can identify with any of these conditions,
[35:50] you're in biblical company.
[35:52] God's arrival means that he's plunging into the limits
[35:55] and the dysfunction of the current world
[35:57] to plant seeds of the world to come.
[36:00] And Christmas is the only Christian holy day
[36:04] that is also a secular holiday.
[36:06] And for that very reason,
[36:08] there's some biblical residue that has gotten stuck
[36:11] to the secular celebration.
[36:14] The holiday season, it stands for sentiments like joy,
[36:18] cheer, brightness, generosity,
[36:21] all of which are rooted in biblical advent
[36:24] and all of which are printed on your Starbucks cup
[36:28] and your Amazon gift card.
[36:31] Only the secular version then replaces Jesus,
[36:33] the source of those things
[36:35] with snowflakes, mistletoe, and peppermint mochas.
[36:38] See, the westernized secular Christmas
[36:40] is a celebration of glorious promises,
[36:44] but they are not grounded in reality.
[36:47] And that's why the holidays are a really happy time
[36:49] for a whole lot of people,
[36:50] but they're an incredibly painful time
[36:51] for an equal number of people
[36:54] because the holidays drag up whatever is.
[36:57] They drag up good memories from the past
[36:58] or painful memories from the past.
[37:01] They invite us to rest in the company of loved ones
[37:04] or to be forced to pass long, slow days
[37:06] thinking of the loved ones we don't have
[37:08] or the loved ones we wish we could trade out
[37:11] or to remember a loved one who's not here this year.
[37:16] Christmas drags up memories we want to relive over and over
[37:20] and it drags up memories we never want to relive
[37:22] but are forced to every December.
[37:24] The modern Americanized version of Christmas
[37:27] can be so painful because it's got all of the promise
[37:30] and none of the reality.
[37:32] It's sentimental and flimsy.
[37:34] It's glorious promises that don't get grounded in reality.
[37:37] God's arrival means glorious promises
[37:40] are grounded in the stark dark reality of this world.
[37:44] Even the waiting part.
[37:47] So let's return for the final portion of our teaching text
[37:50] and this is where we're going to land for today.
[37:54] The true light that gives light to everyone
[37:56] was coming into the world.
[37:57] He was in the world and though the world
[37:59] was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
[38:04] He came to that which was his own
[38:06] but his own did not receive him.
[38:10] Those he came to didn't recognize him.
[38:13] Glorious promises got too close, too grounded
[38:16] in the harsh reality of this world.
[38:18] Glory came in disguise.
[38:22] See the truth is that the very thing
[38:24] that made Jesus hard to recognize
[38:26] is also the thing that made him worth trusting.
[38:30] Jesus did not ask John to endure anything
[38:32] that he was not about to endure himself.
[38:36] Just like John, Jesus endured mockery,
[38:39] rejection, unjust arrest, and even execution.
[38:44] Jesus invites us to be his witnesses,
[38:47] to know the freedom of John,
[38:48] to know even more freedom than John.
[38:52] But we do not get to avoid the waiting.
[38:55] Delay, pain, loss, disappointment, and unmet expectations.
[39:02] And Jesus himself faced those very things,
[39:05] the very conditions that he asks us to endure.
[39:08] Dorothy Sayers writes,
[39:09] For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is,
[39:12] limited in suffering and subject to sorrows and death,
[39:14] he had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine.
[39:18] Whatever game he is playing with creation,
[39:19] he has kept his own rules and played fair.
[39:22] He can exact nothing from man
[39:23] that he has not exacted from himself.
[39:26] He has himself gone through the whole of human experience,
[39:28] from the trivial irritations of family life
[39:31] to the cramping restrictions of hard work
[39:33] and lack of money,
[39:34] to the worst horrors of pain, humiliation,
[39:36] defeat, despair, and death.
[39:38] When he was a man, he played the man.
[39:40] He was born in poverty and died in disgrace
[39:43] and thought it well worthwhile.
[39:47] Desmond Tutu once recounted the story
[39:49] of a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz
[39:50] who was forced to clean toilets.
[39:53] And as he scrubbed this toilet bowl covered in filth,
[39:56] the Nazi soldier stood over him and mocked him,
[40:00] saying, Where's your God now?
[40:03] And without even looking up from scrubbing,
[40:05] he said, He's right here with me in the muck.
[40:10] This is not a God who offers escape
[40:12] from the reality of this world,
[40:13] but a God who plunged headfirst into the worst of it
[40:16] to create a new world right within the current one.
[40:19] You see, Jesus hasn't revealed a God
[40:21] that we can perfectly understand,
[40:24] but he has revealed a God that we can perfectly trust.
[40:27] I trust the God who,
[40:28] even if he's not willing to make all the suffering go away
[40:31] and end all of the waiting,
[40:33] where's the suffering alongside me and waits with me?
[40:37] This is a story big enough to connect the dots of creation
[40:40] and the cosmos above.
[40:41] And it's also a story that's personal enough
[40:43] to include your suffering, your loss, your anger,
[40:47] your pain, your embarrassment,
[40:49] your unmet expectations, and your disappointment.
[40:53] These promises are that glorious
[40:55] and they're equally grounded in that reality.
[40:58] So grounded in fact that the world didn't recognize him.
[41:03] But who did?
[41:06] Who saw glory even when it came in that disguise?
[41:11] Well, there was Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist,
[41:15] an elderly infertile woman who became pregnant in old age,
[41:19] who knew something about waiting.
[41:22] And there was Mary and Joseph,
[41:23] the parents of the Alpha and the Omega,
[41:25] not a bad assignment,
[41:27] but also an honor that cost them everything.
[41:30] They're going to call you a liar and a fool,
[41:32] your families will disown you
[41:33] and you'll have to live on the run.
[41:35] Your labor and delivery room is going to be a rural stable
[41:37] and then you'll raise him as a refugee in Egypt.
[41:42] There was Simeon, an old man who waited his whole life
[41:44] on these promises and then they finally came to be
[41:47] when he was too old to be around for the highlight reel.
[41:49] And there was Anna, a woman who was widowed 84 years ago
[41:53] and then spent the rest of her days
[41:55] living like a non-fasting and praying
[41:57] day and night in the temple that she might one day
[41:59] see the Savior come to be.
[42:01] Oh, and there was those few shepherds
[42:03] that were working the night shift,
[42:04] the lowest on the totem pole of a profession
[42:07] that was considered so debased and unclean
[42:09] that anyone who took up that profession
[42:11] was not allowed inside the temple.
[42:13] And these were the night shift shepherds.
[42:17] It wasn't the robed priest
[42:18] who memorized the prophecies that recognized him.
[42:21] It was those who were well acquainted with suffering,
[42:24] who knew something about disappointment
[42:26] and unexpected expectations
[42:27] and unanswered prayers and squashed hopes.
[42:30] Those who knew all too well the reality of this world.
[42:33] Those who knew freedom but also who knew waiting.
[42:36] They were the ones who recognized glory
[42:39] when it came in this disguise.
[42:42] The creator is the recreator.
[42:46] The hand that sung the stars in the skies
[42:49] and called it good was the same hand
[42:50] that reached out and touched the leper's skin
[42:52] and called it clean.
[42:54] And the eyes that searched for the ashamed Adam and Eve
[42:57] when they were lost in the garden
[42:58] are the same eyes that locked
[42:59] with the Samaritan woman sitting on a well.
[43:02] And the voice that spoke creation into existence
[43:05] is the same voice that would not defend himself
[43:07] and let them put him to death
[43:09] so that I might have life.
[43:11] And he did all of that.
[43:13] The creator became the recreator
[43:15] so the ostracized could become the welcomed.
[43:17] So that the lonely could become the one who is never alone.
[43:20] So that the hiding could become the one who is seen
[43:22] and dignified so that the one carrying a weight of sin
[43:25] that's too heavy to lift
[43:26] could have it replaced by an easy yoke
[43:28] and a light burden
[43:30] and so the one who is condemned to die could have life
[43:33] and life that never ends
[43:35] and the kind of life you actually want to go on living forever
[43:37] because you're finally made whole.
[43:40] The best news is still coming
[43:43] but we'll land here for today.
[43:46] Can you recognize him?
[43:49] Can you recognize him?
[43:52] Can you recognize this glorious promise
[43:55] or when he comes that close?
[43:57] When he gets this grounded in our reality,
[44:01] in your reality,
[44:04] when he wears your burden alongside you, Emmanuel,
[44:08] that's what they called him.
[44:11] God with us, glory and disguise.
[44:16] But if you ask me it's the most beautiful disguise.
[44:19] Can you recognize him?