The Word with God

In the Beginning

How big is your imagination? Have you exercised it regularly? Are your thoughts confined to day time TV, daily chores, office routines and the narratives of your favorite TV shows. Can you imagine something that isn’t presented with CGI or with audio visual aids? Can you Imagine the vastness of Space? Can you wonder at The depths of the Oceans. The heat of the Sun, or the number of stars in the universe.. The number of cells in your body?

Imagination and wonder are two things that we have grown dreadfully short on in the present modern age.. Our imaginations have become as a rule the last thing we turn to to entertain us and teach us.

When was the last time you stared in to a fire or up at the stars and let your imagination run away with your heart?

This time of year we stretch our imagination to the breaking point to think that a man can deliver toys to every house in the world in one night. That is the extent of our Christmas imaginations! Except of course for all the anxious imaginings of our worried hearts.. imagining all the things that can go wrong. the relationships that can be ruined the family members that fall sick and the countless accidents that could fall on any of us.

Today we are going to use our imaginations, specifically our christmas imaginations, to the full extent of thier abilities and beyond. But today you are not being asked to imagine childish fairy tales, or worrisome things that could go wrong. Today we are going imagine the greatest truth ever known.

Today writer of the book of John calls us to imagine the unimaginable: The vastness of eternity before the creation of space and time. Before everything that we know was..

Imagine the eternity before time began. This is what we are to look at.. In the beginning- before creation- before the stars and the sun? before God Spoke and the universe was formed. In the beginning.

Was God, yes! yes! but that is not what it says..

The New International Version (1984) The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

Here John is introducing us to Jesus! But he isn’t starting at his birth! With Mary and the angels..

He isn’t even starting with the Covenant that God made with Abraham, and With Jacob and with David. John is Introducing us to Jesus by Going way back and saying some profound and truly startling about who jesus is..

Now if the queen was here visiting Alice for the day. Alice say this is a friend of mine from away.

OR Alice could simply introduce her as Elizabeth From England.

Or she could say this is “Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”

Once Alice had finished saying all that we would know that this is a special guest and we would pay attention to her time with us a little more closely!

This is what John is Doing! He want us to understand how profoundly special this person he is writing about is!

First he is asserting that Jesus was not created.. that he existed before creation before time began.

but he wants to make his point extra clear so he says “the word was with God and the Word was God! “

Jesus is God! is what John is Saying! John is saying, “the man that walked with us and talked withus.. who suffered with us, went hungry with us.. was the one who spoke the angels into being!” This is a profound claim. And of course the question is how can this be! how can the holiness of God descend to meet the likes of John and what for??

This is where John begins to unpack his theology of the trinity. That God is One in three persons.

Here he is saying that there is God the Father and God the son.. the who is the Word of God.

And that both are God. but that they interact in a very specific way.

He is saying that God is primarily relational. God is not Alone, and never has been. God is Father son and holy spirit. (John talks about the holy spirit later) Eternally, in unity and fellowship with each other. If we pay attention to scripture we see that they trinity is constantly enjoying and glorifying their counterparts.

In other words:

“God was not lonely, bored, or incomplete before he created humanity. God is perfect in Himself, happy in the fellowship and love that exist from all eternity between the Father, Son, and Spirit. Thus, rather than being an attempt to make up for a lack within the Trinity, God created mankind simply because he delights in sharing Himself as an expression of his overflowing self-sufficiency. “ Author:Scott Hafemann

John is saying that God is relational.. and that the creation itself is a continuation of relationship. God is to be known.. to be related to.. That God desires to communicate even with his creation. And with us! but how?

The New International Version (1984) The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

John calls Jesus the Word.. Now the word of God is a very packed jewish term.. it was God’s words that formed creation. It is God’s Word that made a never ending covenant with Adam, Abraham, and with David. literally the Old testament is God’s word!

John is saying that Jesus has a role in his relationship with God the father. He is the expression of God’s Love. The person through whom we know God the father.

IF you want to know a person that you can not see read their words, you listen to their voice on the phone.. their words written or spoken shape the way we know them. They form the foundation of the relationship. Our words knit us together. With out these words our relationship grow dormant and stagnant.. eventually the fade away.

So John is saying that Jesus, is the expression of God’s love! If you want to Know God- listen to his words.. But in this case some thing profound has happened. God’s Word is not written or spoke it is here, a person.. Later in John jesus says

The New International Version (1984) Jesus the Way to the Father

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

The Word was with God! the Word was God!

And now the word has come to us!

And jesus says that there is no other way to God! There might be false voices.. pretend Gods and pretend prophets.. but God has sent his word.. And that is final.

The truth is you can’t know someone second hand.. Not really. you can talk to their friends, there parents even. You can read about them. look at them. but till you hear their words to you you can not begin to truly know them.

Here John is saying that if you want to know God it is only through jesus that that can happen. And even in the past it was only through Jesus because he is the word of God revealed. Genesis to Malachi. All of the old testament points us to this moment, the big reveal when God would be with us.. When the the Son of God would come and show us God fully.

But the best is yet to come.. words without action are just vanity! And Jesus the revelation of God shows us who God is with the actions of love! Love like humanity has never seen.

because as Jesus says himself.

The New International Version (1984) Jesus Teaches Nicodemus

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him

This is the problem. The World did not know God. We did not know God. From the first days of creation humanity had chosen a path other than the one laid out for us by the Word of God. He was love but we chose selfishness. He was righteousness and we chose evil. And the breach was far to great for us to repair.

So God’s love had to be seen not just spoken of. God’s promises had to be fulfilled at a cost to himself. And Jesus was that lamb slain that we might know God again.

This is why I asked you how good your imagination was.. if you have been exercising it much. Because the hardest things to imagine are not the fantasies of Tolkien or Lewis. Nor are they the wonders of science as gaze at the stars above.

they are the truths that we must embrace each day.. That before time began Triune God of Love loved each of us and sent himself to suffer and die that we might be forgiven and might know his love!