Blessed Surprise :: John 1:1-14
It’s no surprise to find God “in the beginning.” At the beginning of Genesis, at the beginning of John, at the beginning of creation ... We hear about God.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This was the beginning. Apart from this there was no other beginning, for God didn’t begin to be ... he is eternal. Thus it follows that the word is eternal because it didn’t begin in the beginning but was already in the beginning as our Gospel for this beautiful Christmas Day declares.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The word is uncreated, infinite, and eternal. He’s always been, and he always will be. He was in the beginning. And He always will be.
If it were any other way, well, he wouldn’t be God, now would he?
Everything else ... everything that is not God, whether visible or invisible ... is part of God’s creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). He created everything out of nothing. God said, he spoke, and it came to be. God said, Let there be light, and there was light (Gen 1:3). ... Let there be an expanse ,.. Let there be waters. ... Let the earth sprout. .. Let there be lights ... Let the fish swim and the birds fly. ... Let the earth bring forth fruit ... and let us make man.
All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made. ... And it was very good.
Prior to the creation, when there was nothing besides God, there was God’s Word. It wasn’t written in a book. It was God’s Word. John says it like this: The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
The Word and God are here described as two distinct persons. Personal pronouns, such as “he” and “him” and “his,” must be used for this Word. The Greek will have it no other way. The Word is a He, not a She, nor an It. In the same way, the Hebrew from the Book of Genesis, makes it perfectly clear. God is the father of all. He is Divine. In short, The Word was God (Jn 1:2), uncreated, infinite, and eternal.
Through this Word, there in the beginning with God, all things were made (Jn 1:3). He was the agent by whom God spoke the entire creation into being, like a master workman, as it says in Proverbs (8:30). Light and life have their beginning and source in him. The Word was there when the sun began to shine, the snow began to fall, the trees began to bloom, the corn and beans began to grow, the cows began to moo, and Adam began to breathe. He was there rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man (Prov 8:31). And it was very good. (Gen 1:31). God and man were together ... walking and talking and sharing. Immanuel.
In God was life, and the life was the light of men.
Fast forward now from the beginning to this moment, and what you find is far different. There’s darkness ... all around us ... thick darkness and deep gloom over the whole world. The world in which we live doesn’t know God. It is a world of chaos. Tohu Wabohu. Complete disorder.
Oh, to be sure, the world thinks it knows God.
The world speaks of God in many and various ways. But it doesn’t know God. The world is spiritually ignorant and blind. It cannot recognize its Maker, even though his imprint is evident in the beauty and complexity and order of creation. The world insists that God has shown himself in many and various ways. They like to say things like I have this gut feeling that all the religions of the world lead to the same place. Every dude goes to heaven ... or whatever the end looks like. They also like to say Jesus is the real thing, but he is just like Muhammad and Confucius and Joseph Smith and L Ron Hubbard ... super spiritual guys who show us but one option among many.
With a single word ... John describes all this ... it is darkness.
The word darkness captures the confusion and misunderstanding and futility around us and even in us. This is what happened that day in the garden when the man and the woman ate from the tree in the middle of the garden. They fell into darkness. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they discovered shame and fear and death. They scurried into the darkness of death, trying to hide in their proverbial closet, trying to cover their shame.
Darkness means that man could no longer see God, understand God, or even seek God. Darkness means that we try to ignore shame. How dare you shame me, we cry out. Take pride in yourselves. Ignore God.
Darkness means we have became one with ourselves, withdrawn into ourselves. No matter how many times man bumps into the stuff God made, we don’t know God, and we can’t see God. We love ourselves. Our me, myself, and I.
Man ... and woman ... are lost, disoriented, alienated, constantly inventing false gods, constantly creating false worship, perpetually trying to fill the void and emptiness original sin delivered to us by serving creation rather than the Creator.
Not only did original sin bring darkness and death to man, all creation became corrupted, marred. We know that the whole creation has been groaning and suffering from sin ever since. We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Original sin has brought this darkness to our world, to our mind.
If the creation were to be redeemed, saved, rescued from this darkness and death, then God would have to do it ... he would have to make himself known ... he would have to reveal himself to us.
But how would he do this? God would come to this place where we are, descend to earth, enter his creation, so that we lost and condemned creatures might know him and have communion with him.
This is the great surprise and wondrous mystery of Christmas. The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. So that we can see him and know him and hear him. So God shows up in a place where we certainly didn’t expect to find him. He came to us as a baby. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). As a baby, in a feeding trough ... a place no one expected him to go. More than that he would spend his life in this feeding trough of a world.
God the Word, who was there in the beginning and participated in the creation of all things, took on a human nature like yours. The Uncreated God became a creature. The Infinite God became limited and bound. The Eternal became subject to time. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ, true God and true man in one person.
What a Surprise!
BECAUSE MAN CAN NO LONGER FIND THE CREATOR,
THE CREATOR BECAME MAN!
The glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world, the light that shines in our darkness, the light no darkness can overcome.
Do you recognize your Maker now, O dear Christian?
Do you know your Creator now, O dear creature?
Do you see your salvation now, O sinner who has been hiding in your dark closets?
We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. His name is Jesus. He was born to die. Born to save his people from their sins through his death on a cross. You are his people. You who believe in Jesus are saved.
The one who formed man from the dust has come with fingers and toes and elbows and kneecaps and heart and lungs to reclaim his creation and to make it new. He was born of a woman, Mary his mother, wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a feeding trough for a bed. He was before Abraham, even before Adam, and yet he can be found in Bethlehem as a tiny babe.
O come, let us adore him.
The one who made the forests and the mountains and the fields and the birds has come with outstretched arms that will be nailed to a wooden cross and raised up on a hilltop for all the world to see this word made flesh. He who knew no sin became sin so that in his flesh he could destroy sin, death and the devil for you. He carried your sin to that cross so that you could watch your sin die on that tree.
There, the Creator of heaven and earth suffered and bled and died for his creation. The one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28) was wrapped in linen and buried in a tomb, because the wages of sin is death. He did this for you, for me.
But death has no part with God. God in the flesh, our Lord Jesus, burst forth on the third day as the first bloom of a new creation. He is, as the author of our epistle writes, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by the word of his power.
O come, let us adore him.
The one who made the wheat and the vine comes now in bread and wine to you. He has prepared a feast of unimaginable proportions for you ... a feast of forgiveness given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here at his altar, he offers to you his true body and true blood for you. The word made flesh for you. Whoever believes this word of God, has exactly what they say the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.
O come let us adore him.
He is so near to you that you can touch and taste. God gives himself to you to make you whole. Fall on your knees. Hear the angels voices. Join in their song: Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of Thy glory (LSB, p 195).
O come, let us adore him.
For God, the Word, who was in the beginning, who was with God and who was God, is now and forever incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, who came to us to live for us and die for us and to give us new life in his resurrection. Break forth into singing ... for the Lord has comforted his people. He has redeemed you, O Jerusalem. ... Now all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
That makes Christmas a blessed surprise: the uncreated, eternal, and infinite God comes right here among us as our light and our life. And now you who have received him, you who do believe in his name have become children of God, united in him and with him ... and he in and with you in flesh that will never die.