A Word Please

A Word, Please from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.


Jeremiah 31:7-14 (898)
7For thus says the LORD: sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the church of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, “Save, O LORD, your people, the remnant of Israel.”
8See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and father them from the farthest parts for he earth, among them the blind and the lame, those which child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here.
9With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

10Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it to the coastlands far away; say, “He who scattered Israel will father him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”
11For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
12They shall come and sig aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; theif life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.
13Then shall the young women rejoin in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
14I will give the priests their fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says the LORD.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God

John 1:1-18 (111)
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. what has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10He came into the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and this own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.

14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15(John testified to him and cried out, “this was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

This is the Word of the LORD
Thanks be to God. 

A word, please. If you will, a moment of your time. We’ve come through Christmas and the passing of 2014. Now we're beginning the dreary early weeks of January. It's difficult to keep our energy up without the lights and excitement of the holidays. Our houses were full of family and celebrations, and now we're packing up the decorations and washing the sheets from the guest bedroom. Our household's evergreens are turning brown and it seems like we're vacuuming more needles than remain on the tree. We get to sing Christmas carols one last Sunday, but our minds have already moved on from Christmas. The paraments are white but the weather is gray.

When we're drifting in so much gray, it's easy to find ourselves disconnected from our absolutes. In the gray beginnings of the year, we lose the energy to search for the ways God is working in the world, and it's tempting to live as though the grayness in front of us is all there is. In the beginning of the New Year, we need a word, please. We need to remember the promise that there is more for us than just bouncing from distraction to diversion.

There was more for Ancient Judah, too, than the trauma and despair of Babylon. By the time we get to this section of Jeremiah, much of the nation has already been carried off into exile. In chapter 29, the prophet writes them a letter telling them that their captivity will not be short, and that they should build houses and plant gardens. This passage is part of another letter sent to give them hope that their captivity will end, but even this hope is kept at arms length, talking of the Northern Kingdom of Israel rather than the community of exiled Judeans. The hopeful word is too much for a fragile community that is suffering through the midst of collapse. Jeremiah's prophetic words give the people hope by promising it to some on else, knowing that the hope will be stronger if the people claim it for themselves when they are ready.

The author of John's gospel also came from an oppressed community. His people live in the hope of the gospel, yet it seems so tenuous in a world so gray and hopeless. Maybe instead of light and darkness there's just a gray area and we make what we can from it while we can?

John refuses to settle for gray, imagination-killing despair. Just as Jeremiah had refused to give up on his relationship with God, so John holds ferociously to the Gospel. In a gray world, the Gospel is what gives him the vision he needs to see that the light indeed shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn't extinguish the light. The Word of God, revealed in the Gospel, brings life into an otherwise gray existence. "The Gospel matters because the story of Jesus draws the reader into the story of God."

John begins his account of the good news of Jesus Christ with what is known as the Prologue to the Gospel of John. Even before anything happens, John makes a promise about what he is going to show us by the way he tells the Gospel story. It’s not just John’s promise to try and bring some color into the gray world of his community, John is showing us God’s promise to bring life into a world that had lost itself. A word. please? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It’s more than the historical, first century Jewish man named Jesus, it’s the story of humanity’s redemption at the hands of a loving God. "The Prologue is not concerned with the earthy origins of Jesus but with the heavenly existence of the Word in the beginning.” The Prologue promises that these words will point us to God. 

A word, please, as we begin. A prologue before the good news, to show us where we should look in this gray world. “[The Word] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, nothing came into being. What came into being through him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” In the grayness, we forget sometimes that this dreariness is not eternal. It had a beginning, and it will come to an end. We have life in God, in God’s Word, in Christ Jesus. With John’s Gospel, and Jeremiah’s prophetic words, and the whole of the Biblical witness pointing to God, we can have hope that surpasses these passing storms and seasons. ”Just as God created the heavens and the earth and all life therein, so the [Word] brings life to creation.” Even in the dreary times at the beginning of January, when it’s difficult to see, there is still life. Even in the dimness and shadows, there is still light.

John promises us, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” This is where his Gospel will end, the rest of this narrative unfolds to show how the darkness did not overcome the light that is God’s Word-made-flesh. Whenever we feel stuck, emotionally or spiritually, we come back around to the promise John makes about the end of the gospel, which he puts in the Prologue before the story even begins.

Then a different John, a character in a story not his own, makes an entrance. It’s not the same John as wrote this gospel, but just as the author of this book was inspired by the author of all creation, so too “There was a man named John who was sent from God.” John has one job, to testify about the light, to point to the one who sent him. A Word, please, of testimony, on behalf of “the true light, which enlightens everyone”

The true light energizes us when we are stuck, but it’s not a peaceful, easy process. “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 this 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 the will of man, but of God.” We resist, because we don’t always recognize the light in the midst of the dreary grayness to which we have grown accustomed. But when we live in a way that is oriented to God, when we grasp the life that is the light for all people, we are using the grace and truth that God has given us through Jesus Christ, the Word-made flesh.

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Another promise of liberation, an absolute claim on which we can hang this narrative. A word, please, about the truth which sets us free. ”From the contents of the prologue the reader knows Jesus's ultimate identity and knows that his mission will engender new life. But the reader also anticipates that darkness will attempt to overcome the light and that Jesus will be rejected by his own.” It’s not an easy process, and sometimes we may even long for the familiarity of the dreary world we had before Christ. But we are no longer stuck in the grayness, in the despair. We are liberated by the Word of God.

“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”