Sermon Tone Analysis

“Keep Christ in Christmas.”

It made its appearances in yards across North America.

What could be behind a sign like this?

For some it meant removed nativities from city halls or Starbucks deceptive red holiday cup or Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas or a general feeling that our culture is rejecting God.

In a simple sign, Keep Christ in Christmas, we see an attempt from a culture to combat another culture around what we call Christmas.

Need: Our world is cast about in a darkness right now.

Whether it is our struggles with our neighbors local, national, or global we are accurately and practically aware of that which disturbs and causes us to mistrust the world around us.

Maybe our darkness isn’t attached to cultural giants, but an awkward aunt, a loud uncle, a bank account, a missing job, a frustrating love life, a sick relative, an empty chair at the table,

An unstable year leading to an unknown Christmas holiday towards a frightening year ahead that seems much of the same.

We are aware of the darkness but, where is the light?

Where is God during this thing, we call life?

Did we lose the battle to keep Christ in Christmas?

Our sermon series is upon Light piercing the Darkness and we begin to see that in

Our Text: John 1:1-14.

This is on page 71 of pew bibles, John 1:1-14, starting in John 1 vs 1.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Witness John

6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.

8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Word Made Flesh

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Preview:

We will look upon three things from passage reading today.

First, to truly recognize Jesus, we must see Him in terms of the Word and the Light.

Second, we see the Jesus’ significance and the worlds’ reaction to Him.

Thirdly, “how do we belong that which truly matters” in a culture that is consistently changing the line of ‘what matters.

Finally, to bring it all together we will end with “what’s this have to do with Christmas?”

Main Body: Turning to John 1 “In the beginning” what a wonderful place to start, the beginning.

We are reminded of another beginning in Genesis 1:1.

We likewise should start “in the beginning” with the context of the writing of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John is looking at a culture not unlike ours; that makes many claims about Jesus.

Some sayings towards Jesus, the person of Jesus isn’t a person at all but rather a Meat-puppet of the divine wearing skin of a human but all God.

Or the opposite, merely a man with no divinity, a messenger.

Maybe, Jesus is one of the many gods, no more special than a Zeus or Apollo, a local god but nothing important.

An unattached God, a watchmaker who makes a watch and leaves.

Or perhaps, a culture who is indifferent and rejects Jesus.

No importance spiritually because it has no significance in the real physical world.

All these the Gospel is addressing, and our world hasn’t moved far from having a similar perspective.

It is with this mentality we start

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

Our first term to understand is “the Word” but notice it doesn’t say about the Word “From the beginning” or “At the beginning.”

“In” the beginning meaning that the “Word” is Eternal.

The Word predates the beginning.

Luther put it this way “That which was before the world and before the creation of all creatures, must be God”

The first claim about the “Word” is that it always was and preceded the beginning of time.

This moves against many perspectives of the Word being “merely a man” “just a good teacher” or a “prophet”

The next claim is equally challenging “the Word was with God”, the Word has a special relationship with God.

A union, something personal, relational, and inseparable.

If God could be separated, He is no longer god but like the Greek gods of many pieces and polytheism.

The Bible is firmly in One God and One God alone, not gods in pieces.

One God in special relationship to Himself.

Yet, a distinct separation.

The ancient audience may have struggled but then it keeps going “The Word was God” this reminds of the unity of God being One God.

If we suspected multiple gods or minor gods, it is dismissed by saying “the Word was God” and in all nature and all interior of who God is we find “The Word” is Divine.

The final phrase in v.2 repeats much of the same but suddenly, we have an identifier “He”, in a culture that seems a pronoun conscious we have a Pronoun unlike any other.

The Word, this Eternal Word, this Word that is Divine, is given a pronoun “He” the Word is identified.

But, what does He practically do?

v.3 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

“All things” all includes everything.

All things, the earth, the rocks, the birds, the animals, every form of material that whether visible and invisible, everything owes its existence to Him.

Many like to perceive God as the watchmaker who leaves a watch showing the existence of the watchmaker.

While this image can be used in other places of Scripture, this is not an accurate or complete picture in this emphasis of the Gospel of John.

In v.3 it says, “Through Him” the His relationship to the universe is not a man working on a machine but closer to a woman giving birth.

The difference is a couple, talking about the idea of children vs a growing child in the womb.

The Word isn’t working in ideas, He is working with a growing universe.

A delusion people, and some Christians, make is that Jesus the Messiah only had to do with salvation and saving us from our sins that His work only began after his human birth and was completed upon the Cross to his eventual return.

That is irredeemably wrong, Jesus’ work wasn’t limited to only saving our invisible souls and get us to heaven, He was working with the material of the universe and upholding it “through Himself”

He was active in creation, creation is not the divine, but creation is upheld by the Divine.

There is nothing apart from Him. Nothing is possible without Him.

There is no part of our existence that is outside of his control.

V.4 hammers this

4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

In Him was Life.

Without life you find only death.

A common accusation to Christianity, why can I not accept Jesus and still have eternal life?

This is answered here it’s life and death “In Him was Life” If we all stop breathing, we die.

Because oxygen keeps us alive.

Oxygen keeps us alive because it gives us life.

If we deny Jesus, we are not denying some distant deity.

We are denying life spiritual and physical, “In Him was life”, without life we die.

It’s not a matter of moral right and wrong if it was, we would all be dead.

It’s a matter of the grace of God in God giving life to those who constantly demand death.

The phrase “In Him was life” rejects a god unattached from the universe, it is a God deeply involved.

In our verse we find another phrase “the light of men”

We see a subtle shift into light, this light though is related to men’s reason.

An animal exists for the sake of existence.

In nature documentaries we see amazing world of birds working to gather, reproduce, and exist.

But they lack a light.

They live but there is something different about humankind.

Birds never ask why they live, they just do.

We reason, think, invest, invent, use our intellect, and all the value goodness of things like wisdom, joy, knowledge, all of this comes with the light of reason.

The God of the Bible and by extension Christians have been accused of being anti-intellectual or anti-reason.

This little phrase reverses that flow.

The Word gave us the light of men, it is the Word who gave us the gift of reason and thought.

During the biblical period there was a Greek mentality that dividing the control and dominion of gods into many parts.