The Life We Have Seen and Heard

Introduction

In the summer of this year, Brad Wachstuch was kayaking in the Broadville River when he noticed something bobbing in the water nearby. He fished it out and found a bottle, but there was more. A message was in the bottle.

He uncorked the bottle and read it. It had a name so he started some research to find out who had sent it.

On August 20th, he returned the note to its sender, a woman named Cathi Riddle who, in 1985 with a friend, had written a note, put it in the bottle and sailed it away. It was caught by the currents and even captured in a tropical storm until it turned up in the river.

Thirty-five years later, she had the message she had written.

Today, we want to fish a bottle out of the streams of time and open it. It’s not about hobbies or current events. Instead, it asks a question, “how is your life?”

That letter that has withstood tides and storms with its message is the first letter of John. It’s message and question are just as important today.

What really is life and do you have it? The truth of the gospel exposes cracks we have filled with substitutes like philosophy or pop psychology. We sought “fulfillment” in all the wrong places. Instead, Christ offers the real thing, life eternal, something genuine and lasting.

So John puts pen to papyrus and starts to write a letter, and in the opening verses is the the Word of Life, shining through the silt of what was tarnishing Christianity.

The Background of the Letter

Author

The letter is penned by John, the follower of Jesus, the disciple whom Jesus loved. He is the last survivor of hikes across Galiee, sailed the sea, watch storms calmed and the dead raised.

A second and third generation had arisen. So much had changed. The Jerusalem temple was gone and with it the influence of Judaism. Without the eyewitnesses, reality could easily take on the stature of legend or myth.

John lived in Ephesus, the great capital of Asia Minor. He had probably already written his gospel, although we do not have a good timeline. He writes as an older man, a father who speaks to those struggling with faith. He has seen so much and experienced it all and now, it is time to leave a final message.

The Circumstances

Times were changing. While persecution was coming, that was not the threat to the church. The church has always thrived in persecution. However, it has not survived seduction well.

Now a noxious teaching was beginning to take root. Like the kudzu vine that took over the southeastern United States, this would become a spiritual dangerous. With in half a century it would have the name gnosticism.

It was a collision with culture that fused different elements of each. Graeco-Roman thought had replaced the prophets of the Old Testament and Christianity was becoming philosophy.

Nothing is ever innocent because it leaves a scar on the faith. That was true of this teaching.

It focused on a philosophy that taught that people have two different spheres that do not affect the other. The body, with its urges and needs, was evil. It was antithetical to the spirit. But the spirit, was distinct, totally unaffected by what happened in the body.

It taught that the body was the prison locking up the soul. The goal of life was to gain enough enlightenment to break the chains of that prison. Once special knowledge and ritual was attained, spiritual perfection could be attained.

Before you dismiss it too easily, consider what people do today. Regardless of how bad the behavior, they can always rescue themselves by saying, “At least my heart was right.”

It came with two different expressions.

Some became ascetic, punishing the body for its role in evil. Leather straps and chains would be taken to their own backs to beat it into submission. And it did not make any difference how much pain they suffered, the body did not matter. And if you could free the soul, the pain was worth it.

But the other was more prevalent. People became libertines who indulged the body. Immorality became a way to satisfy the most base urges. It was acceptable because it did not touch the spirit, which was walled off from it.

It has never completely disappeared. Modern cults demonstrate perverted lifestyles while claiming a form of spirituality in the name of religion. It would have fit well into the closing decade of the first century.

One who best shows this problem is a teacher named Cerinthus. He lived in Ephesus, the same city of John’s residence. He taught that Jesus was only a man, albeit, a exemplary man, perhaps the best that can be born.

Today, we have the same idea floating in various circles. Jesus was not divine, just one of the best moral guides the world has seen.

Cerinithus went on. At the baptism by John, the spirit came and infused the body of Jesus of Nazareth with something called Christ. Jesus did not work miracles but Christ did. When it came to the cross, Christ left and the man Jesus died on the cross.

John saw this as it was, a dangerous way of saying Jesus was not who he was. Eusebius tells us that John was entering a public bathhouse in Ephesus when he saw Cerinthus inside. He refused to even go in saying, ‘Let us flee,’ he said, ‘lest even the bathhouse fall, because Cerinthus the enemy of truth is within.’

Such teaching was insidious because it corrupted all areas of Christian life and thought.

It affected the nature of Jesus.

The incarnation was impossible because divine spirit could not be inside the filthy body. And they found a way to handle the problems that might arise. One teaching was docetism, the idea that Jesus just seemed to be God. Jesus did not do miracles, but it just appeared he did.

It is like a current practice. Recently, in Star Wars, one of the actors died in the middle of filming. Instead of a complete rewrite, they used computer generated images to “make it appear” they were alive and in the movie.

If you want to dismiss the divinity of Jesus, this was one avenue.

But it also created division in the church fellowship.

It taught there were “special people,” those with hidden or secret knowledge. These “elite Christians” who “took their spirituality seriously” created a split church. There were the “knowers” and those who did not know.

If you were not one of the “knowers,” you had not place in the fellowship.

All of these were seductive senses for men. The desire to be special was attractive and the ability to live as corrupt life as possible and yet be spiritual provided a special license. No wonder it was sweeping through the church!

The Word of Life

The book opens with words which echo John’s gospel

1 John 1:1 NIV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

John starts with the term “that,” something that doesn’t seem to have personality. Yet, within a few short words, it is apparent that Jesus embodies and provides “that word of life.” He is what he brings to earth.

But what is this Word of Life? Is it just the man Jesus? What life?

There is more to life than just working, eating, sleeping, and playing; you can do all those things and not really experience life as it was meant to be experienced. 

Eric Weiner wrote a book called Man Seeks God. In it, he describes the life man really needs, through his own personal experience.

The 17th Century French philosopher Blaise Pascal coined the term "God-shaped hole" to describe the yawning void that is the human condition. Over the years, I've attempted to fill my God-shaped hole with all manner of stuff—food, sex, [leather-tote] bags, success, more food, travel, drugs, books, more food, leather-bound notebooks, Red Zinfandel, Cuban cigars, yet more good food, pretentious foreign films, and once briefly and ill-advisedly a concoction of Guinness and Jack Daniels imbibed through a plastic funnel. --quote from Eric Weiner, Man Seeks God

It is this life, the life beyond philosophy, beyond the daily grind that John presents in this letter. All other ways of life are nothing but pale substitutes for the life Christ offers to those who embrace it.

But after quickly giving you the subject of his letter, he moves to the object—Jesus himself.

In it there are three traits that John emphasizes about Jesus to a world which is quickly dismissing him.

The Word is Eternal

We tend to be historical. When did that happen?

I love to read history because it places humanity in various contexts. When you read of Alexander making his way through Europe and conquering Asia Minor, you ask, “what came before…and after?” We like talking about our founding fathers like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton. but that was infants in cribs compared to time.

Step outside of time, and there you find Christ.

1 John 1:1 NIV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

That which was from the beginning. Christ had no beginning, only existence.

The gospel is not history because it is beyond history. Jesus is not bound by circumstances, and neither is his message. It does not depend on a political system or economic system. It existed before any human being or human institution, before the worst dictators and the best leaders. He is Son of God in poverty, in destructive storms that batter cities and when people sing Happy Days are Here Again.

And it is hard for us as Christians to divorce the life of Christ from the life we experience. But before all we hold dear, even the ground we stand on, was the Word. It does not come out of human experience but informs human experience

The Word Experienced

And yet, John takes this eternal, ethereal concept and puts flesh and sinew on it.

John wants to make sure all understand that Jesus is not legend or myth. Those are man-developed stories of heroes. Jesus was not a Zeus or a Paul Bunyan. And he lays emphasis on it.

First, while it was eternal, it made an appearance.

1 John 1:2 NIV

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

It “appeared” as John would put it. While the Old Testament kept the gauze of prophecy over it, it came into full view in sharp relief in human flesh. God opened the curtain so men could see what life could be.

And then John says, “and I experienced it.”

1 John 1:1 NIV

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

Through short clipped descriptions he makes Jesus accessible to us.

He heard him. With his own ears he heard the pitch and timber of his voice. He heard him preach the sermon on the mount.

He saw him with his own eyes. He says we have seen. That’s not an idle glance. It is a word for a staring in wonder. We saw and we kept watching, it how he puts it. It was sight that lingered and remained with John, even though his old man’s eyes had begun to dim.

He touched him with his own hands. While John mentions it, Luke described it at the end of his gospel.

Luke 24:39 NIV

Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

John could touch flesh left raw by iron nails and the bones of fingers and ribs. He could touch his face and feel its texture.

The word means to “grope” and feel around something. It reflects what happened in the story of the blind men and the elephant.

Four blind men encountered an elephant. They did not know what it was so they could only use what they could feel to describe him. One fiddled with the tale and concluded and elephant was like a rope. Another touched the body and ascertained from feel that an elephant was a wall. The third wrapped his arms around the leg and determined an elephant is like a tree. The last felt the twisting trunk. It must be like a snake.

With the touch of the hand, John says the idea that Jesus Christ was not a man is the myth. The real Jesus had flesh and bone.

He says I heard, saw, and felt. He is real. Christianity is not an idea you roll around in your mind. It is God slipping on a flesh suit. He is God in our form so we can understand him.

John says that so he can verify one idea. He is only testifying.

1 John 1:2 NIV

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

Using the word martyr, or witness, John says I was an eyewitness. Eyewitnesses are not allow to give their opinion. Only what they saw for themselves. They tell no stories. They relate their experience. And for John, the best proof of God’s entry into the world was not just what others could say but what he experienced.

Jesus does not come into the word as an idea but a man to be experienced by us.

The Word Related

John gives this build up to show that we can have a relationship with both Christ’s body on earth, the church and with God the Father and Jesus the Son.

1 John 1:3 NIV

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Fellowship is a huge word for John. When we use it, the word comes out of our mouth has the taste of uncooked oatmeal.

John makes it more than just sharing or sitting in a room together, sharing the same space. It is more than splitting an apple in equal parts.

Fellowship sets aside private interests and desires to join in a common purpose. It is grasping onto the life the gospel gives rather than admiring.

The basis of this fellowship is not that we like each other. That is social fellowship. It’s more than that. We together serve the risen Christ and together we accomplish his purpose for the world. It is a together word, one centered around devotion to the Master.

And it is not just in church but with the Father and the Son. We can participate with God in his work in real ways.

Fellowship is more than a pot roast on Sunday afternoon. He wants, in this letter, to drive home a central issue. How can you have true fellowship with Christ and with God? Is it because you have “special knowledge?” Is it because you are elite? And do people include or exclude or is that God’s decision?

This is an issue John wants us to wrestle with.

Conclusion

John closes this introduction with his true purpose.

1 John 1:4 NIV

We write this to make our joy complete.

He wants his joy to reach the apex. And it comes when we are in fellowship with God and Christ. It is what makes both master and disciple smile.

What do we see from our lesson this morning.

Christianity is not an idea.

On problem that John faced and we do is that Christianity is a set of proofs and propositions to agree with or disagree with. It is a discussion group question. And many, have reduced it to a series of truths with a yes or no answer.

And so we are tempted to turn Christ himself into these kind of statements. We ask if they are true or not or we accept them or not. And in doing so we become Christian philosophers.

Christianity is not about what you agree with or disagree with. Its not a creed whether spoken or unspoken you hold to. It is grabbing hold of a Savior and not letting him go. It is staring at his face and meticulously following his example.

That’s the only way to follow Jesus.

Christianity is being part of something, not apart from it.

The idea of fellowship is woven through this book. What gives you fellowship and what breaks that fellowship? John encourages people from all walks of life to walk with Christ together.

There’s a poison creeping through churches. That is that church is about me. Please me. Listen to me. Meet my needs (which are also my wants). So we seek the program I like or the people I like.

And yet, fellowship means you give up your wants for the good of the whole.

True fellowship comes out of life that is so in love with Christ that it forgets itself. If you have him, you have enough.

Tragically, some don’t have that kind of life.

Cornelius Gurlitt didn’t. He was an 80-year-old German citizen, who became the owner of 1,400 pieces of art, more than 500 of which were once looted by the Nazis. Bavarian officials took the artworks, but Mr. Gurlitt claims his ownership is based on legal grounds. In a recent interview he "described losing the pictures as more painful than the death of his father in a 1956 car crash, his mother's death, or his sister becoming ill with cancer." "I've never loved anything more than my pictures in my life," including another person, he said. "The pictures are somewhere in a basement now, and I am alone … What do these people want from me? I only wanted to live with my pictures."

Is your life more than pictures in a basement?