Isa 61:10-62:3; Ps. 147 Gal. 3:23-24; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18
Today we are confronted by John again. I want
to provide some background on John’s gospel
and what motivated him to write it. Tradition
says that the apostle John lived a long life and
might be the actual writer of this gospel
account. Apparently this Galilean fisherman
studied Greek culture at some point in his life.
This gospel was written in Ephesus about 100
AD-the last of the gospels to be written. The
other gospels had been written earlier and by
the end of the first century, there were many
Gentiles who had become Christians and a
way of explaining Jesus’ purpose and origin
was needed so they could understand.
Also, the other gospels had excluded Jesus’
early ministry and it is apparent that there
was a need to record these stories. In John’s
gospel, one gets a sense of a story told by one
who was there. He remembers little details a
nonparticipant wouldn’t know: the scent of
the ointment filling the house when the
woman anoints Jesus’ feet, that the boy who
brought the loaves and fishes carried barleyloaves, the number of miles the boat rowed
before Jesus joined them by walking across
the water, and that there were six stone pots
at the Cana wedding to name a few. John
smelled the ointment, ate some of the loaves,
rowed the boat and drank the wine at Cana.
John wanted to have a written account that
would express the theology and Christology
of the early church so those from the wider
world could absorb it into their own cultures.
Greek thought had taken hold in the wider
world so he set about to tell of Jesus’ life and
ministry while looking at the meaning behind
it all.
A Greek reading Matthew’s account would
have to wade through all the material that
referred to Judaism and perhaps try to change
his or her way of thinking about and relating
to the world. Also, at this point, the early
church was trying to separate itself from
Judaism to protect their status in the Roman
Empire. John’s gospel considered the Greek
mind and culture. He begins with the Logos.
Logos means “word” but it also means
“reason” and any Greek would take notice of
the word “logos” because the Greek culture
admired reason and a thinking person. A
Greek looked at the world and saw order,
magnificence, and dependability. The Greeks
pondered this order and saw its source as the
Logos, the mind of God. And, further, they saw
humankind’s ability to think, to reason, and to
know as coming from the Logos dwelling
within humans.
The Greeks believed (and Plato formulated
these beliefs) that this world was an
imperfect copy of a real world. That God had a
plan in this real world and humankind was
living in a shadow world outside God’s plan.
John used the word “alethinos” to describe
Jesus and unfortunately it has been translated
as “true” when “real” is closer to its meaning.
Jesus is the real light rather than the true
light. Jesus is the real bread, the real vine, and
part of the real judgment. Jesus alone in our
world is real. Using the word “real” would
appeal to the Greeks’ belief system.Knowing this about the Logos and alethinos,
maybe we can look at John’s opening
statement in his gospel story and see how he
would grab the Greeks by their togas and have
them listening. In the beginning was the Logos,
and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was
God. He was in the beginning with God. All
things came into being through him, and
without him not one thing came into being. A
Greek or anyone else familiar with Hellenism
would recognize this. “Wow, this is what I
believe! I know this Logos!”
And it only gets better: What has come into
being in him was life, and the life was the light
of all people. The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it. Here is
the Logos illuminating all people and the
shadow world cannot overcome the light. Up
to this point John has been general and his
theology lined up with the Greeks. Now he
gets specific.
He tells us about John the Baptist who told
people the light was coming. In John’s gospel
he makes sure John the Baptist isn’t too
weird. There is no need to dress him as a
prophet-the target audience doesn’t care-they
are interested in the Logos, the mind of God,
the “real light”. The real light, which enlightens
everyone, was coming into the world. He was in
the world, and the world came into being
through him; yet the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own, and his own
people did not accept him. But to all who
received him, who believed in his name, he gave
power to become children of God, who were
born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or
of the will of man, but of God. This would have
been exciting to the Greeks. While they
believed there was a real world and their own
shadow world, none of them, including Plato,
had determined how to get to the real world.
John is telling them that the Logos came to
the shadow world as the real light and those
who received him were born of God. This
would catch their attention. John is telling us
that every action Jesus performed on earth
was not only something that happened in
time, but also is a means of seeing what thereal world is like. How a real person would
act. I guess Greeks were like the Velveteen
Rabbit, they wanted desperately to be real.
John is writing about a real person who lived
in this shadow world just as he did in God’s
real world. He was and is the Logos.
And reason became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father’s son only, full of grace and reality…
From his fullness we have all received grace
upon grace. The law indeed was given through
Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus
Christ. John’s gospel is about Jesus and his
stories relate Jesus’ glory, God’s glory. John’s
gospel is about how the mind of God, reason,
became flesh and lived in the shadow world
so we could see how to become real.
John’s gospel is for those who cannot wrap
their minds around Judaism because it is a
foreign culture. John’s gospel is for those who
look at the world and see the darkness and
shadows yet know and believe that the order
in all this chaos has a magnificent mind
behind it. This is why, I, as someone who has
studied and embraced science for as long as I
can remember, hold the gospel of John so
close to my heart. Whatever I have studied in
science, I have seen this order, this
magnificence, this Logos or reason that
denies a purely accidental event to start it all.
I, like the Greeks, see God behind it all. I, like
the Greeks, see the imperfections in this
world-in humans. But, John tells us there is
something more and that we can become
connected to the real, we can become real by
receiving the grace upon grace that Jesus
offers. No one has ever seen God. It is God the
only son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who
has made God known.
The triune god lives in community: Creator,
Savior, and Guide. Jesus lived in community:
his first action was to choose twelve men to
accompany him in his ministry and then there
were all the others who followed him and
traveled with them. He calls us to live in
community so we can be real and shine the
real light in the world.May we always recognize the real light as it
shines out in the world.