Scripture: John 1:1-16
Given on 1-20-2019
In my office, sitting on a small table just as you walk in, sits one of most prized possessions—a chessboard. The chess set, given to me by good friends of mine and my wife’s, Eric and Lizzie, on their return from the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan where they had just met and were now bringing home their adopted daughter, Katia, from an orphanage in Bishkek. The board itself is made of a wooden frame with what I can only guess is either sheep or yak leather stretched across and laced into the sides with the alternating squares being tanned to a darker or lighter degree to distinguish the two colors. The pieces, each hand carved from wood local to the country with the dark pieces stained in a deep brown color and the light pieces lacquered and sealed with the grain of the wood visible from just underneath the lacquer. It is a piece of art as much as it is a chess set and I love it presence in my office as much as I love to play with it. I have grown up a lover of the game of chess since I was a very young boy. And even though I cannot reach back into the fog of the past and tell you who taught me how to move the pieces around the board—it was surely either my father or my uncle, his brother—it was without a doubt my Uncle Alex that taught me how to play. Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of my uncle sitting on the floor with me and teaching me how to play using a chess clock. My uncle is an amazing chess player, having played in tournaments throughout much of his life, and in those earliest games I would just try to stave off his attack as long as I could in hopes that his clock would run out before mine did. To be clear, this strategy never worked and more often than not, it just shortened the length of time that a game would go as I would furiously, and with no strategy, move pieces all around the board while he methodically took each one of my pieces until I had no possible defense for my king, who would inevitably fall. As I grew older, I learned to slow down and at least try and strategize from one move to the next, though against him it rarely mattered. But the longer I have played, the more I am aware of the tremendous distance between someone who is just learning the game and say a grandmaster like Boris Spasky, Gary Kasparov, or Bobby Fischer. When you are first learning the game, it is enough to remember how the pieces are supposed to move, pawns forward one space at a time, rooks can move unimpeded from one of the board to the other in a straight line, bishops can do the same only on a diagonal plane, knights make a “L” shape when they move, and finally, the queen can go anywhere she chooses for any number of spaces. As one progresses, you begin to see more of the board from your own perspective, maybe you can game out 2 or three moves in advance and have something of rudimentary strategy. Good players can see 4 to 5 moves in advance, really good players, can think through variations on multiple strategies but it is the grandmasters who not only can play both sides of a game and potential variations from the start to the, but can also see the entirety of the board at all times. With the really great players, the thing that separates them from any other level of player is the ability to see the whole of the board play out in front of them and never become rattled by anything that happens. Often in tournaments, with one wrong move, both players know that the game is over 20 moves before it has actually played itself out because they can both see the whole of the board, the whole of the game. And I have stared at my chessboard a number of times this week as I have thought about this passage of scripture that has been so critical to my faith throughout time. Because in much the same way that really good players can see the whole of the board and the whole of the game, the author of John was convinced that Jesus could see the whole of the cosmos all at once because he had been there from the very beginning and nothing had come into being without him. And it is this faith that held Jesus up when the challenges of his ministry became more than he could bear. It was this faith that reassured him time and again that all things eventually return to the good and return to God. It was this faith that shone like a light even when all the world was cloaked in a luminous darkness. And it all starts with a simple declaration, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and indeed the word was God.
The Gospel of John is written and offered to a world that has been cast into complete and utter chaos. Composed almost 100 years following the death and resurrection of Christ, John’s world is one of deep uncertainty and confusion for most of the faithful. While for much of the 1st century, traditional Judaism and this new sect of Judaism simply called “The Way,” shared an uneasy coexistence within the synagogues that dotted the Jewish landscape, by the time of John in 120 or so, that connection had been completely severed and Jews and Christians were now in directed competition both for adherents but, more importantly, for survival. The reality of Christianity, often captured by stories of the faithful not knowing who to trust in a land and an empire that was not welcoming to them using symbols drawn in the dirt to figure out who was a believer and who was not, found itself in an increasingly tenuous existence. Much of the worship was done in secret—in the homes of the faithful in smaller communities, in the catacombs under the ancient city of Rome. Even the language that the earliest Christians had developed confused a great many on the outside of the faith looking in. Familial verbiage of brother and sister that is still prevalent in the faith of today, had many convinced that Christianity was a religious tradition founded upon incestuous relationships. The eucharistic language of consuming the body and blood of Jesus left others believing the Christianity was primarily cannibalistic in nature. And the Romans, experiencing a period of recommitment both to the religions of the state and local gods cracked down on both Judaism and Christianity with each of the faiths pointing to the other one in hopes of being spared persecution. And all this occurred at a time when, at least looking back, there is no way that anyone could have just assumed that Christianity was going to be victorious or even just survive to become the foundational faith of the whole of the Roman Empire and Western World for much of the past two millennia. It is into this deeply uncertain and chaotic world that John casts his opening hymn—both a hymn of praise to God but, perhaps more importantly, a declaration of allegiance to Christ above all, in all, and as the very foundation of all. “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.”
And so it is that we encounter the story of Jesus, told in the form of a lyrical hymn. And it is a story that predates all that has been spoken of Jesus in the previous gospels, before Jesus was conceived by the Spirit and born of a virgin in Bethlehem, before his baptism by John in the Jordan River and the traditional start to his ministry. Rather, the image we are given is of Jesus, the Christ, the λόγος, the word, as being commingled with God before anything tangible, visible, created appeared within this cosmos. Further, what arose in the Christ wasn’t just the stuff of life, the things that we surround ourselves with each day, but life itself. Our life, the spiritual force that courses through our bodies and our souls is both a gift from Christ, but, also, forever linked with Christ. And I got to tell you, something vital becomes lost in our understanding of the text if we don’t know precisely what John is meaning when uses the term “word.” And if I can nerd out on the language for a moment, the term for “word” like one might read on a page of scripture, isn’t λόγος, it’s λέξη. So we know right from the commencement of the Gospel that John is about something different than we have heretofore considered about Jesus. John in his use of the word λόγος is connecting the appearance of Christ with a philosophical tradition that was very prominent in the first century, a philosophy that seeks to understand everything that happens within creation by positing the existence of the λόγος that is an overarching logic, reason, order. And before your eyes glaze over, hang with me for one more minute because this is crucial to understanding the Gospel of John in its full context. The community out of which John is written, having had a full century to work out the meaning of the appearance of Jesus in the world, brings together his presence, his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection with this search for an underlying reason of the cosmos, the logical nature of it, the order that arises when one can step back and see the whole of the universe moving before you. Like when a really good player can envision the whole of the chessboard at once and see every possible move, every possible variation, so, too does Jesus as the Christ see the entirety of God’s plan for the cosmos in a way that gives him faith in the ultimate goodness of the world, faith in the movement of the spirit to blow where she will and yet eventually reconcile all things back to God. Faith to stare down even death on a cross knowing that are the end is life eternal. And so, as we travel through the gospel of John this year, keep that in mind, hold that in the back of your head, that Jesus the Christ, is also the source, the bearer, the holder of the underlying order upon which the whole of the cosmos is formed and there is a faith that arises in him because he is the embodiment of all that is. But more importantly, Jesus the Christ beckons us to see the whole of the picture with him, as well. And our ability to see the whole picture, to see the whole board, requires us to have faith and to believe even as we battle against our own unbelief. This faith is made all the more real, all the more tangible as we encounter the person of John in this opening passage. Because before we learn anything else about him. Before we learning about his practice of baptism for the remission of sins. Before we learn about camel hair for clothes or locusts and honey for a diet. Before we learn that he is Jesus’s cousin. Before any of that, we first encounter the person who bears witness to the light that is Christ. The true light, the light that sparks our faith and our ability to believe was coming into the world and the people who dwelt in darkness needed to get ready to have their shadows cast away in the power of Christ.
For as long as I can remember, the concept of light shining in darkness has been of central importance for me in my faith journey and my life. From the earliest age where I was scared of the dark and needed to have the hall light on in order to get to sleep at night, to the contemporary time in which Lesley and I have had to face the mortality of our children at an earlier age than any parent should have to face such things, as if there is a proper age at all. Throughout all of that, I have been drawn to the imagery of light shining in darkness as being that which protects and sustains all of life no matter what the journey has in store. And at times, that journey has been smooth and I could feel myself bathed in the love that God has God for all of creation, myself included. Other times, the roads have been rockier than I believed it was possible to handle. But each time I have found myself stuck in the darkness, it has been to that singular passage, that single concept to which I have clung. And just as through the person of Jesus the Christ a holy order was woven into the cosmos, so, too are we invited to believe in that order for the living of our lives. Just as the person of Jesus the Christ displayed the love of God for all the people of God, so, too, are we called on to share that love with all those around us, regardless of whatever borders or boundaries the world creates. Just as the person of Jesus was the light of the world that enlightens the whole of the world dispelling the darkness and casting out all our fears, so, too must we be a conduit for that light, that love, that cosmic order. So, too, must we be the ones who reach out into the world of the broken and bring people in here to mind rest, comfort, sanctuary, solace. For in the end, the church, the faith, is nothing if we cannot continue to be a safe space for persons to collapse when the weight of life, the weight of the world becomes too much for any one person to bear. The church, the faith is nothing if we choose to dismiss some while sanctifying others. If we choose to care more about our own survival, our own island, amidst the sea of struggle and injustice and hatred that is ongoing for so many outside these doors we will surely fall short of the call of Christ on our lives. For we are called to be nowhere else but in the midst of the struggle, proclaiming peace in the face of violence, working for hope to emerge out of despair, and offering love to all people, praying for our enemies, and laboring for the reconciliation of the world with each other and with God. The church, the faith, is nothing is we cannot be a warm and affirming presence in a world that too often declares people to be inexorably broken and in need of cheap fixes and new products. If we cannot reclaim the foundational belief in Christ as being that which brings meaning to this life, order out of chaos and light even in the darkest nights of people's souls then we will not be long for this world and something new will emerge to take our place. We are, as we have always been, called to be a beacon of light in the midst of a world that too often is bathed in darkness. We are, as we have always been, called to stand with the ones that Jesus called the least of these, in every time and place. We are, as we have always been, called to speak truth to power and to stand against Caesar's army whether in the guise of imperial dominion, or radical fundamentalism in all its forms, or in face of economic inequality that is rendering so many unable to care for their family's with dignity and expectation of a better tomorrow. We are, as we have always been, called to do these things by declaring to all people in all times and places, "You are the beloved of God.”
As y’all know, yesterday a tornado struck the city of Wetumpka and destroyed a number of structures including the Presbyterian Church. In addition, the back of the pastor, Jonathan Yarboro’s house was ripped off with his older daughter there at the time. I cannot imagine what that must feel like to wake up this morning to that reality and yet, when I talked to him yesterday, all he told me was, “We are ok. Nobody is hurt. That is all that matters.” And this morning, that church, that gathering of the faithful, is meeting even though they have no sanctuary because that is what the faithful are called to do. And in doing so, they are but connecting themselves to the long line of the faithful in all times and in all places who have bravely stood up and declared their faith, their allegiance to God. The church in Wetumpka takes its place with John the Baptist who spoke of a light shining in the darkness that would enlighten all people even when that darkness seemed to swallow everything. They take their place with the earliest Christians who even under the threat of death would boldly proclaim that Christ is king and not the Caesar even if it meant the end of their physical lives. They take their place in the line of the earliest church fathers and mothers who spoke truth to power over and over and over again no matter what the cost. They took their place in line with the Reformers who declared a new age of the faith, a new way to see and embrace the light all around them and to invite others to do the same even when the Church sought to silence them. They took their place with the Civil Rights leaders of that era, with Fannie Lou Hamer and Myrtle Evers, with Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth, and with Martin Luther King, whose life we honor this weekend throughout the country, who boldly cried out freedom even when they were anything but. Because to declare faith in the midst of tragedy and doubt is to connect with and draw strength from that unbroken chain of the faithful from our past, to declare hope when all seems to be a'washed in despair is unite with the circle that remains unbroken stretching from God to earth and back to God. To offer love to each person you meet is only to be filled with the Spirit who is making all things beautiful and holy and new. Faith, hope, love, remain these three. And the greatest of these is love. Alleluia, amen.