One of the most striking things about the Gospel of John is the way in which the great, cosmic story of God intersects with the lives of ordinary people.
The book begins with images and words on the grandest scale. The first 18 verses, also known as the “Prologue,” tell how God, in Christ, is bringing forth the light of new creation to redeem the whole universe.
Then, in the very next chapters, the book tells how Jesus brings this redemption among simple, everyday people. Instead of great courtroom dramas or important political showdowns or “significant” decisions among the powerful, we see Jesus bringing new life in the most ordinary situations. The effect is rather shocking. After all, what place does a crippled beggar or a struggling Samaritan lady or a family who can’t afford to host a proper wedding have in the great plans of God for the universe?
Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe that ordinary people like us have a place in the plans of the mighty, creator God. And yet that is precisely why John’s Gospel was written–to help us believe.
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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: The Gospel of John
January 4, 2015
Jesus and You
John 1:1-18
Good morning. Good to see you. Happy New Year. Was anybody else up early enough to seriously wonder if the sun would rise today? I was up this morning and just kept looking at the horizon, going, “I don’t know. This might be the day when there is no sunlight all day long.” That sort of can make you a little glum in the morning when it’s rainy and dreary and, like Dave was saying, the hard reset has come. Holidays and all of their excitement have begun to pass, and now we’re getting ready to go back into our regular rhythms for the month of January.
Maybe some of you are ready for that. I know growing up around my house after the end of winter break, the end of Christmas break, as we got to that last night before school would start, our mood would just keep getting worse and worse and worse. In fact, my brother was worse than I was. He couldn’t even stand to hear the word school mentioned, so it was forbidden in our house.
It’d be that last Sunday before going back to school on Monday or Wednesday or whatever it was, and he made us say squish instead of school. So we’d say, “Hey, Daniel, are you ready for school?” He’d say, “Don’t say it! Squish!” That’s what we would do. We’d talk about squish. Tomorrow is a squish day.
But at those times, especially when we hit maybe some of the doldrums or feel a little glum or it’s rainy outside… In fact, this morning as I was waiting for the sun to rise, I thought about for people who come to Grace every Sunday there is this lure to just participate in worship online, and I thought if there were a way for the preacher to preach from his kitchen table while wearing a bathrobe, just as it’s possible for the worshipers to worship from their kitchen table wearing a bathrobe, this would be the morning to do it.
This would be the morning to stay at home, but I’m glad we are together, and we’re going to be in a text that really comes into that place in our lives, or at least that’s what it has done for me this week. It comes into that place of just getting reset and reconnecting and maybe feeling even a little glum from the weather and helps remind us of the big thing we’re a part of and helps remind us what this is all about.
In fact, the gospel of John, which we’re about to begin, is unique from the other three gospels. If you’re familiar with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each of them tell the story of Jesus, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called Synoptic Gospels because they tell the story of Jesus more or less chronologically, starting with his birth and then to his ministry all the way through to the crucifixion.
If you put those three together, the synthesis of them gives you a pretty complete picture of Jesus’ ministry. That’s why they’re called synoptic, when altogether you can see the full picture of Jesus. As soon as you start reading John, you realize it’s quite a bit different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Its arrangement, its order, its composition, the themes even, still telling the same story of Jesus, but giving us some fresh angles and some fresh viewpoints of who Jesus is that are there in the Synoptics but emphasized in fresh ways in the gospel of John, which is part of the reason I’m so excited to be reading it and going through it this spring.
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to John 1. We’ll start right at the beginning. If you do not have a Bible, go ahead and slip up your hand. We’ll put a Bible in your hand. You can read with us. Also, if you need a sheet for notes, that would be handy as we’re going to map out this passage a little bit. Also, if you have prayer requests or would like to get some more information, that bottom part of the note sheet is detachable. You can drop it in the offering plate as it goes by.
We’ve got a nice, full, rich morning together. The 9:00 gathering was really sweet. We have some special guests from out of town. We’ll meet them in a few moments. Of course, it’s also the first Sunday of the month so we’ll be celebrating Communion all together. All of this really comes down and back and centers on, focuses on, this gospel of John.
As I mentioned, it is a different gospel from the others. In fact, it is almost certainly the latest gospel that was written. It was probably composed and published and distributed sometime toward the end of the first century, so maybe AD 90 or 95…,maybe 85, but sort of in that range. If you remember Jesus was crucified, resurrected somewhere between AD 32, 33, 34, so we’re talking 50-60 years after the resurrection.
As far as we can tell, the gospel of John was really anchored in and written in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the great church cities of the early church. It was really the anchor point of the church moving into that Gentile Roman world. The city of Ephesus was on the coast of what we would consider today to be Turkey.
In Ephesus they were facing some unique challenges. It’s almost as though after Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written, telling the story of Jesus, John’s perspective on the life of Jesus addresses some of the unique challenges that were facing those people who were living in Ephesus in actually more in like the second generation of the church.
A few of these challenges would first be that in Ephesus here’s this group of people who believe Jesus is Lord (he’s the true King of the whole cosmos) and that he died and was resurrected, and that was a powerful story for these believers. But because they were living in Ephesus, that’s the place where there are all the Greek gods, you have the Greek philosophies, all of the Roman perspectives on life, and so this story of Jesus was one of many different perspectives on the meaning of life.
So the people who were living in Ephesus and who were living at that time were really trying to sort out what is the meaning of life and is the meaning of life hinging on this character, this person Jesus Christ or is it something else? People were just asking, “What is the meaning of life?”
Furthermore, because it was some period of time after the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, there were some people who were disappointed that Jesus had not yet returned. In fact, at the end of the gospel of John, it makes mention of some of these people who believed Jesus was going to return before John the apostle died. So here they are 50-60 years after the resurrection expecting that Jesus is going to return and he hasn’t. So how do they deal with the almost disappointment that the world is still a mess?
So here are the people in Ephesus. They’re wondering first of all, “What’s the meaning of life? Among all of these different stories, why is this one unique?” Then they’re going, “By the way, why is the world such a mess?” Then finally, around this time you have all of the eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus beginning to die.
It has been 50-60 years since the resurrection, and so now there’s this shift beginning to occur because if we talk to a person who was there, who was an eyewitness to any event, we’re very prone to believe it. But there’s a different kind of understanding that occurs if it’s not an eyewitness, and so John is sitting down, writing out this gospel so his eyewitness account can be preserved for the people who hear it.
This is raising another question. “Now that there are no more eyewitnesses why should I believe this story? Why is this one the meaningful one?” This is what the gospel of John is really going to tackle. What’s the meaning of life? Why is the world still such a mess? Finally, why is this story the one worth believing? I know those are pretty ancient questions, first-century questions. It might be hard to connect to where we’re living today, but we’ll give it a shot. (That was a joke. Thank you for laughing.)
Right? Because we wonder this too. We wake up on a glum Sunday morning. “Oh man, what’s the meaning of life today? Man, the world is still a mess. Lord, when are you going to return? What’s going on here? Why does this matter? This story of Jesus today, why does it matter to my life, to what we do this week and next week and this spring and this year?” These are the same kinds of questions we are asking, and John’s answer to all of those questions is that it’s all about Jesus.
So we’re going to read these first 18 verses of the prologue (it’s called the prologue to John, this little section, the introduction to the gospel of John), and then we’re going to unpack it a little bit. So John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.”‘) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” (John 1:1-18)
I think I was about 10 or 11 years old when I had the opportunity to go with my dad to New York City. At the time he was a bass player in the Milwaukee Symphony and he had a couple of concerts to play at Carnegie Hall, but we had an extra day or two to explore the city. One night, my dad said, “Let’s go to an opera.” I’m a 10-year-old, so I’m thinking, “Okay.” I remember a few things about the opera. I remember showing up wearing jeans and a sweater and looking around and I’m realizing I’m underdressed for an opera in Manhattan.
I remember that a number of the characters in the opera (it was Rigoletto by Verdi, a very famous opera) died, which is not uncommon, I learned, in operas. Most people die, the main characters anyway. But what struck me was their ability to sing even after they had been fatally stabbed. I had to stretch my disbelief there just a little. I thought, “You’re holding that note a long time for having a knife between your ribs.”
The other thing I remember about the opera was that the music began playing before the curtain came up, and this was, of course, the overture. My dad explained it to me. I didn’t really know what an overture was, but in operas, in some musicals, and even some classical music pieces it’s common for there to be a short segment at the beginning called an overture. In the overture, the themes of the remaining music are sounded. The melodies that will come back down the road are just hinted at as preparation.
There’s this really wonderful thing that happens. If you pay attention during the overture, then as you get through into the actual meat of the story, as the opera progresses the curtain comes up and things begin to unfold, you hear those same notes that were sounded in the overture. It creates this beautiful effect. “Oh, I’m understanding. This is almost like a summary of the whole story musically in advance.”
Now this prologue, this beginning, these 18 verses operate for the gospel of John sort of like an overture. Before the curtain comes up, before we begin to see the events of Jesus’ life, we hear these essential notes, the melody that will be playing throughout the whole rest of the gospel. It’s setting the stage for us to understand.
Perhaps a more modern or familiar example of an overture would be a preview to a movie. Have you ever watched a preview to a movie you wanted to see and then you almost felt, “Oh rats! Now I kind of know what the whole movie is about”? That happens to me sometimes. In fact, sometimes Amy and I will just watch the first 30 seconds of a preview and then we’re like, “Okay, that looks pretty good. Let’s stop!” because we want to see the movie itself.
It’s true. When you watch a preview, you get a sense. “Okay, these are going be the characters. This may be the same plot line.” You start putting together some pieces. When you actually see the movie, it begins to elaborate on all those themes that were introduced. I could just imagine the prologue of John as a preview.
Maybe it starts off with like a black sky and then all of a sudden maybe some light appears, something sort of like creation or some picture of the galaxy. Then that movie guy voice comes on and he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” and some music starts coming in like that. That’s what’s going on here. This is an overture. This is a prologue. This is a preview to what God is going to be doing in Jesus.
One of the privileges or one of the things I’m really going to enjoy as we walk through the gospel of John in the coming months up until Easter and even a little beyond Easter is that Buddy Hoffman, when he started Grace and we moved to this building in the year 2000, began a series on the gospel of John. So actually his first sermon in this building right after we had moved in the fall of 2000 was on this very passage. It was great. It was awesome because I have all of Buddy’s old sermon notes.
Of course, Buddy is up at New Hope preaching and leading our whole Grace family of churches. But reading through his sermon notes, I really think that that first sermon he preached here in this building is still so true as we’re aiming at understanding the heart of this prologue. So I just want to read you a little bit of Buddy’s notes from that sermon.
If you were around 14 years ago when we first moved into this building you might remember that those wings didn’t really exist. They were just walls there and classroom and office space behind that. So you guys who are sitting in the wings are actually sitting in original offices. Actually there was no carpet when we first got in here, and so the metal chairs on the hard floors made such a ruckus that we had to cut tennis balls and put them on the bottom of the chairs to make them a little quieter, keep things kind of audible.
So here’s Buddy, and these are some of the things he said. It helps to set the big picture as we dig into this passage a little more deeply. Buddy said, “In the near future we want to have an open house, invite the workers, contractors, and attempt the recognize those who’ve helped to make this building happen. At that time, we will officially dedicate this wonderful space, and I’m sure it is obvious to you that we have a ways to go before we finish.
But this morning I want to make one statement, and I want to make it clearly. I know that it’s the heart of every member who gave and everyone who worked. It’s the heart of our staff. It’s the heart of our board. It’s not just a pious platitude, and this is not just my statement. If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times during this project. This is not about us. This is about Jesus.
This building is not a monument; it’s an instrument. And it’s not our instrument; it’s God’s. It is not for our glory, but it is for God’s glory. It’s not a holy place; it is just stuff. It is not a temple, a cathedral; it is just a building, and it was not built for the advancement of our own agendas or created for our comfort. Its sole mandate to exist is to magnify God. It is a place we will gather to worship God, teach the Word of God, and seek the advancement of the work of God. It is about Jesus.
There’s a tendency to wonder if that needs to be said. There’s a tendency to think, ‘Of course this is about Jesus! Jesus is the foundation of all we do.’ That is a given. We take that for granted, but the foundation is something we build and forget. We place other things upon it. Without it, nothing else would be possible. But it’s not something we enjoy and think about. We love the living room, we delight in the kitchen, but we do not show off our foundation. We do not enjoy the footings. We forget them. We take them for granted.
God does not like to be taken for granted. God does not desire to be forgotten. God delights in our delighting in him, and we need to remind ourselves and to declare publically that Christianity is all about Jesus.” I think Buddy’s words in that first sermon in this building still apply to us today. As we read this same text out of the beginning of the gospel of John, it draws us back that this really is all about Jesus.
This text reminds us as a body, as a community of worshippers that our foundation is Jesus. But how do we understand that foundation? How do we put these pieces together? What do the themes of the overture say to us? How does this help us address those questions of the meaning of life? Why is the world a mess? Why is this story worth believing?
There have been many efforts through the years to figure out the structure. It’s almost universally agreed that there is a real structure to this beginning. Some people have said, “Oh, it’s almost like a song that was used for the inspiration of these 18 verses.” But one of the most helpful ways of understanding the structure I’ve found as I was studying and reading and chewing on this, and one that seems to fit most clearly into what John is saying is that this passage operates in the shape of a parabola. Is everybody good with that?
I know there are like three high school sophomores who just finished graphing in geometry and they’re like, “I totally know what a parabola is,” but for the rest of us, a parabola is basically a U shape, okay. Maybe you’re remembering now. It took me a little while to even remember how to pronounce parabola. “Pear-uh-bola?” Is that some kind of disease in Africa? Is that some sort of strange-shaped umbrella? No, it’s a parabola.
Here. Let me show you a slide that’ll help you see what I’m talking about here. This U shape here shows the flow of this passage. So at the beginning you find there’s a portrait of Jesus and God together in eternity. We’ll unpack that in a minute. Then it moves from that place to our lives, our world, where we’re living right now, how this Jesus really descends from heaven into our lives and then invites us from that place to follow him into the new creation and eternity with God.
So the passage really begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (John 1:1) and it ends in verse 18 with the same idea that the only God at the bosom of the Father has made God known to us. There’s this sweep of God in Christ coming into the world and drawing us with him into eternity and new creation and beauty.
Along the way, part of the beauty of understanding this structure is that there are parallels. Just like you see eternity and eternity at the start and the beginning, there are several other chunks that mirror each other, and it helps us to see the heart of the passage and all of these themes that are woven throughout this great overture to the story of God. So let’s unpack those a little bit.
As we just mentioned, it starts off with Jesus and God, and it also concludes with a portrait of Jesus and God. There’s some mystery involved here because it’s clear that Jesus is identified with God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Here’s this connection, the shared identity between Jesus and God, but at the same time there’s a distinction because the Word was with God. Jesus was at the Father’s side making him known.
This is one of the mysteries of God’s nature, that there is no God but God, only one God, and yet at the same time Jesus, who is identified with God is distinct from God. John does not take a lot of time to figure out how that works philosophically. Rather he witnesses to the reality that he experienced. He had come to the conclusion through his time with Jesus that Jesus was in fact God, but at the same time he is distinct from God. How does that work?
One of the ways he tries to explain it is by using this image of the Word of God. There are all kinds of connections and overtones to that Word, the Word of God, but one of the ways to understand this idea of Jesus identified with God but also distinct from God is kind of the same way words operate. In one sense, we are very much identified with the words we say. In fact, people will come back to you sometime and say, “But you said,” because our words and the things we say reflect who we are. Our words and ourselves share an identity.
But our words are not precisely us. They are distinct from us. So now John is trying to draw on that experience just a little bit to help us understand this mystery of how God and Jesus relate to each other with a shared identity yet distinct. Of course, later on in the gospel of John we’ll also hear about the Holy Spirit who exists within that unity as well.
So now from this picture that really starts the story in eternity past, Jesus is not created, but he is existent with God from the beginning and on forever, and that unique relationship between Jesus and the Father uniquely qualifies Jesus to make God known to us.
In fact, that’s the whole point of these two at the beginning and the end of the parabola here, the U shape we have moving through the passage. The whole point is that Jesus reveals God. If we want to know what God is like, Jesus is the one who shows us. No one has ever seen God, John says, but Jesus in his unity and nearness to God makes him known to us.
Now the second thing we see, kind of the mirror, as we’re moving down this U shape is the relationship between Jesus and the creation, because it says very clearly that Jesus was involved in the creation from the beginning. He’s not a created being; in fact, he is Creator. It is again stretching, but if you remember back to the book of Genesis and that account of creation, remember it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) How did he create? He began to speak. “Let there be light,” and there was light.
So from very early on, the Jews who read those passages had this understanding that God in creation, his Word was like an agent of the creation. John’s gospel here is saying that Word, that agent of creation, is Jesus himself. In fact, that word, the logos, is what gives order and purpose and direction to the whole creation. In him, as it will say in Colossians, everything holds together. Jesus is the Creator.
In that creation, it says here in this verse 4, that Jesus is the very life. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4) So in creation, Jesus is the life and the light. But then on the other side of the U, these same themes appear again. This appears in verses 15 and 16, talking about how Jesus not only creates at the beginning, he also is the one who brings new creation in grace and truth into the world.
There’s this idea that darkness is opposing the light as it comes into the world and the darkness cannot overcome or comprehend it. So now Jesus is bringing light and life but also grace and truth into the new creation. So this is a story about how God reveals himself through creation and draws us into new creation.
Now the next little parallel we see on this U is a double mention of John the Baptist. I know it’s feeling technical right now, but hang in there with me because we get to a good spot. John the Baptist. How does he end up in this? This is a great big cosmic story. Why is John the Baptist in here twice? What’s the role of John the Baptist here? Is it because the Baptist denomination is the best?
So what’s the role here? What’s the deal? Part of it is to emphasize the importance of God doing what he said he would do. He promised he would send one who would go before Jesus and prepare hearts for Jesus. If we’re going to get to know Jesus, it’s pretty important for us to recognize John the Baptist’s role.
But at a deeper level, it shows us one of the ways God works in the world. See, God works through his servant John, just an ordinary guy just like us. One of his prophets, sure. He’s anointed. He’s powerful. He’s chosen by God for a very special task, but he’s a very ordinary guy, a human man. Here God is saying, “I work through my people.”
The emphasis in these passages that both mention John is that he was a witness to Jesus. He announced Jesus. He pointed to Jesus. He drew attention to the light, but, the passage said, he was not the light. This helps us understand not only that God works in the world through his people but also that he does not ask his people to do something they cannot do. Jesus is light. Jesus brings life. John the Baptist, as great as he was, greatest prophet apart from Jesus, merely points to the light.
This is important to keep in mind, especially when we think about leadership or our role in ministry or think about pastors or leaders of churches. Sometimes we have a tendency in our pride to set ourselves up as the light. “Come here. Let me save you. I’m a very bright person. I want people to like me. I want people to need me.”
So we set ourselves up as the light, as the source, and the problem is we can’t do it. Actually the life and the light are in Jesus. It’s not in us, and the moment we start directing people to ourselves as the true light is the moment this whole story begins to break down. A crucial reminder that we’re not the light, and praise God for that because we can’t do what Jesus does. We’re not the Creator. We point to the light.
As we keep moving around this U, we see another pair of ideas, and these two ideas talk about not just how John the Baptist points to the light but also to how Jesus himself brings the light into the world. So now we have this great cosmic story, Jesus with God from the very beginning showing up in our world.
The first mention of this is about how Jesus is the light coming into the world, in verse 9, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. The second one is in verse 14 which is a very familiar passage. The Word became flesh. It’s a very, almost crude, word. It doesn’t say the Word became a human, the Word took on a body; it says the Word became flesh, meat, and dwelt among us. It’s actually quite shocking that a story that begins at such lofty heights and goes to such lofty heights at the Father’s side would descend to such base levels.
The Word became flesh. The light came into the world. The point here is that Jesus, this great Jesus who makes God known to us, is now making himself available in a way we can see and understand. God’s Word to us is Jesus, and Jesus is intelligible. We can understand this light.
So now we got to the very bottom of the parabola or the bottom of the U, and this is the heart, the core of the passage. Right here, this place where all of these pieces of the story, the symmetry or the balance of this beautiful poem come together. What’s there? It’s our response. What do we do with this story?
There are two responses shown. One of them is that the light came to his own people and his own people did not receive him. Then the other response is that the people who did receive him he gave power to become children of God and poured out grace upon grace people who’ve seen his glory. So at the heart of this thing is you and me and us.
The stories about Jesus, and these things remain true of Jesus regardless of our response, but what John is really pressing at, what John really wants us to get is that at the core of this whole thing, this great and glorious God humbling himself and coming, drawing near, making himself known to us that we might either receive him or reject him. How will you respond to this Jesus?
To help illustrate that, we have a couple of special guests here with us from… Actually they live in the Middle East, and they may be familiar to many of you. They have lived in Atlanta for a period of time and actually worked at Grace for some time. They’ve been away for about four years.
But just to help us get our heads around this in maybe a unique way, because this is a familiar passage and sometimes it’s easy to just check off the box, “Yeah, I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it.” But how does this play out in the world? How does this story of God coming in, drawing us into new creation and eternity play out in some places where we may not expect?
I’m really glad we have with us this morning Kenny and Kristin Schmitt. So I want to invite them up, and let’s give them a nice welcome. So, guys, Kenny, Kristin, good to see you. Yeah, very good to see you guys. Since you’ve left and moved to Jerusalem, your family has grown. So we have a picture here, but why don’t you introduce everybody too.
Kristin Schmitt: Yeah, that’s our little guy Lincoln, and he is 9 months old.
Jon Stallsmith: Nine months old. Where was he born?
Kristin: In Bethlehem.
Jon: Oh yeah. In a manger?
Kristin: No.
Jon: Sorry, that was kind of cheesy. Next to a pumpkin?
Kristin: Yeah, no. Hospital.
Jon: In a hospital. In a normal…
Kenny Schmitt: I will say one thing. Kristin’s sister has a young one this age as well and a 5-year-old, and she said all she wants for Christmas is a silent night.
Jon: I get it.
Kenny: We related to it.
Jon: I get it. It’s like a Christmas carol.
Kenny: Yep.
Jon: Kenny and I knew each other in college, and then of course we lived together for about five years in Buddy’s basement and got to know each other really well. Obviously, our comedic chemistry is still really sharp.
Kenny: Sharp.
Jon: Yes. But okay, why don’t you guys tell us a little bit about what you do in Jerusalem. What’s your daily life there?
Kristin: Yeah, so really the vision of why we’re there is to share our lives and the kingdom of God with our Palestinian neighbors, friends, and on a daily basis on the ground what that looks like is learning language, raising our family, doing life in community with Palestinians.
Jon: Very good. So you’re learning the language, and Kenny, you’re also doing some studies.
Kenny: Yeah, our role in the community… As people ask us, “What are you doing here?” our answer is that I’m a doctoral student and I’m studying Islam in Jerusalem. Not from like a theological or a historical perspective, but the main question is…What is the living Islam here? What are people’s lives like and how do they relate to their faith?
That’s a very strategic topic because it puts us right in those conversations we want to be having with our Muslim friends. What is faith to you? Who is God? How do you relate to the holy books? What does it mean for you to live in a conflict zone and what does your faith have to do with that?
Jon: So your dissertation gives you a pretty good entre into conversations.
Kenny: Yeah, very much so, and it’s been so neat just all these different levels of society. I’ll tell some other stories in another environment about meeting some significant political leaders because of that.
Jon: Excellent. So you guys live in Jerusalem, moved to the Middle East because it’s just so peaceful, and…
Kenny: The ‘burbs are kind of boring.
Jon: Yeah, I’ve been to your place. It’s not that boring. So why did you guys do that?
Kenny: Yeah, I think we could answer that for maybe two sentences or two paragraphs or two days, but simply it’s that people matter. I know that was actually a vision, a piece of what working on staff here at Grace was so key, that Buddy and others and elders and staff were like, “People matter,” even the ones who live in a complex, tense conflict zone. Even further than that, the ones who are on the other side of who we typically call friends. So those people matter.
I’ll share two quick examples of that, of why that has come out in our lives. As I went to New York shortly after 9/11 with a group from Grace, I knew nothing about this fellowship or who the people were. Just some friends from college were going. I went away from that trip really compelled to love these New Yorkers and my neighbors, but I hated Muslims. I felt that inside of me.
We’re driving home. We’re in a 15-passenger van and I felt God spoke to me. He said, “You have to love your enemy. You have to love Muslims.” To put flesh around that, a few of us decided, “Hey, let’s start talking to them, getting to know them,” because you don’t love the idea of a Muslim or Islam or whatever; you have to find people and talk to them and relate to them.
So there’s more to that story, but a bit later, a few years, I was in Jerusalem outside of the garden tomb. If you’ve ever been there, it’s a fascinating place because here’s this rock face, and it’s jagged, and it looks like this epic place of crucifixion, but right in front of it is a bus stop. This is where everyone just hangs out and walks around and goes home and goes out and all of that.
So I was at this place sitting in a bus waiting to go to my next destination. The bus was taking a while to fill up, and I’m watching the crowd, the people just go to and fro in front of me with this Golgotha in the background. This question or this thought struck me, “How do you share Jesus with these people?” Just like Jon is talking about, we’re familiar with John 1, but how does it come alive into these people’s lives? So that was when God said, “That’s what you’re supposed to do, figure that out.” So that’s why we’re there.
Jon: Do you have it figured out now?
Kenny: We’re working on it.
Jon: That’s good. Well, just tell the rest of us when you get it.
Kenny: We are listening to you teach, so I was hoping you’d tell me something.
Jon: Yeah, so let’s go to the next question. As you guys are building relationships, hanging out particularly with Muslims in Jerusalem, some people hear about Jesus or some people just reject Jesus. We’re talking about this passage where this meeting occurs between Jesus the light and his own people, and he’s on earth. Why have you seen people reject Jesus?
Kenny: Yeah, I think… Well there are a whole host of reasons people can come up with, but for our experience we see a lot of it as misinformation. They will have this idea. I’ve had guys say to me I can’t even count how many times, “Well, you believe in three Gods,” and I look at them and I’m like, “Nope.” They say, “Well, God had relations with Mary, and there’s Jesus…one, two, three.” I’m looking at them and I’m like, “I don’t believe that. That’s crazy!” So that’s misinformation.
Or they’ll have this idea that the Scriptures have been corrupted, the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament. They’ll just tell me till they’re blue in the face that it’s not reliable and they can’t trust it. You can engage in a conversation with them and you can explain from some very solid evidence that it is not corrupt and that I do worship one God and that Jesus did die, but there are the people who reject it, say, “I don’t want that. That’s too much. That’s out of my box,” or, “No.” So they’ll reject.
Another thing is in a conflict zone we see all the time. You live on one side of the city; you don’t want anything to do with the other. They’re the enemy. You demonize them. You belittle them. You call them backwards. I mean, I’ve even heard stories of, “Oh, the other ones have tails on them. They run around.” It’s just crazy the amount of talk and negativity towards the other.
So when you’re dealing with your enemies, the world says, “How do you do it?” Well, you control them, you manipulate them, you bomb them, you kill them, whatever you need to do so you have the power. Then when you start talking to people about, “Well, actually, the power of the cross is in giving power away. Not being bent on violence but being bent on self sacrifice for the sake of others in love,” that’s a tough pill to swallow. I think maybe the last reason is they might just not recognize Jesus. Maybe Kristin could share a story on that.
Kristin: Yeah, I just recently had a friend of mine over there, and she had this dream, and God was there, and she knew it was God, but she couldn’t see him. She felt his presence. Part of this was he was behind this curtain, and in front of the curtain was a man, and she knew this man was so important to get to God, but she didn’t know who he was, and she wanted to.
So she’s explaining this story, this dream, how she felt, and she’s like, “Who do you think it is?” I’ll add that she described him as a man who was wearing all white and had a dark beard, but she just didn’t know who he was. She was asking me who I think he was, so of course I shared who I believe that is, Jesus, the way to see God. It’s just new information to her. It’s totally a concept she’s never thought of before, but God is really speaking to her through that.
Jon: Amen. That’s good. So people have misinformation or they just don’t recognize him or maybe they can’t swallow the message. What about people who do receive this good news of Jesus? Where do you see that? Because even being there a couple of months ago, we got to meet some of the people who have received Christ. Why do people receive Christ?
Kenny: Yeah, that’s a great question, and I don’t know if there’s any special sauce in the Middle East because it’s the same everywhere. The reason people receive Jesus is he comes to them. It’s that simple. They have a need. They’re broken. He heals them. He comes to earth and says, “I’m here to be with you. Follow me. I want to guide you through this.” That’s why they come to faith.
Another simple reason is that they receive Jesus because someone tells them about him. That’s it. Someone takes the time to listen to this gal’s story and says, “I have a pretty good idea who that man is.” I mentioned the corruption issue. So often the way we handle that is I just get out my iPhone that has the Bible in Arabic on it, and I say, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever read the Bible?” They’re like, “No.”
And so pull out the iPhone and we start reading it. I mean, just in a shop, drinking coffee, no big deal, and they’re amazed. I most often take them to Matthew 5, and we read the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, and they’re just shocked that Jesus’ teaching would be so powerful and so relevant for their lives. It’s almost like John the Baptist. You just say, “Look. Here’s the truth.” You’re just pointing it out to them, and that is why they come. It’s really God’s work. He’s the one who’s doing it. You’re just showing up.
Jon: What do you see among the people who do receive Jesus over there in a tense place, lots of conflict?
Kenny: It’s really beautiful, and it’s honestly quite humbling to be a part of. I’m thinking of one friend. He’s a Muslim guy, a sheikh, so that means he’s a religious leader. He leads prayer, all that stuff. He has memorized the Qur’an, and he’s very versed in Sharia law and Islamic history and all these things.
But one day a man came to him and brought him a Bible and a DVD of The Passion of the Christ. He had been thinking about the Bible a little bit just because he was interested in it historically, but when he had watched The Passion of the Christ, this is what he said happened to him. He said he wept so deeply that he had to take a shower afterwards. So from that point on he was committed, that God would come and have Jesus be the living example of God’s character and save him through that.
Another piece of that. He has led his friend to faith, which is really exciting too because our job is to just encourage the guys who already know the language perfectly, already understand Islam, have lived in protracted conflict for their whole lives. They’re the ones who can really translate the message effectively. So his friend comes to faith, and he starts saying things. This is what he says.
He says, “You know, it’s like this teaching of Jesus here where we live. Like unless the seed falls and goes into the ground and is buried it will not come up and produce tons of fruit and be resurrected.” He said, “That’s really the solution for the problem because that’s what all Palestinians need to hear.” This is what he’s saying to me, and I’m thinking, “Where did you learn this?” At this point I don’t know if he’s a believer or not. I only knew him by reputation and had been praying for him.
He says that, and I said, “Hey, where did you learn that?” He said, “I read it. I read this stuff. I’m reading John.” I’m like, “Oh,” because you know John 12, right? Jon will preach on it in a few months or whatever. It’s right there. This guy is also the man in another conversation. I was just so encouraged by this. He said, “In the midst of the conflict and the tension…”
Let me add this as well. There are often long lines at checkpoints, and movement and restrictions are a constant hassle, and what would take you five minutes to get somewhere could take 30 to an hour or more. He said, “I’m sitting in line at the checkpoint just waiting, and I feel like Jesus is living inside of me teaching me to be patient.” I don’t know how you guys handle Atlanta traffic, but what a beautiful thing, the way God would be transforming him.
I’ll share one quick, last story because I think it’s very relevant to discuss the hatred issue. One of these guys, I don’t know him directly. Some of the strategy is that I don’t, but I get reports on him through others and through friends. One day he was in the presence of God. This is a guy committed to Jesus, his story, life, death, resurrection.
He’s in the presence of God, praying, meditating, and he says he senses in his spirit like a syringe comes out of heaven, sticks in his heart, and God sucks all of his hatred for Jews out of his heart. Amen. We’re talking about incarnation and God entering into our world. This guy loves telling that story by the way with his friends and saying, “We have to stop hating.” So that’s some of how it looks there.
Jon: Wow. Beautiful. I think that helps just refresh us with the power of this passage and how it actually works in people’s lives. We’re about out of time, but I know you guys will have a gathering at the 1123 house next week.
Kristin: Yep. Next week, January 13 at 7:00 p.m., if you guys want to hear more stories.
Jon: So guys, just pray for Kenny and Kristin. I know they’ll be around in the foyer a little bit, and then I really invite you to come back on January 13, the 1123 house, which is our house right up the road here on Dogwood. 1123 Dogwood is the address. Thank you guys so much for sharing a little bit. It’s super encouraging.
Kenny: Thanks.
Jon: So we’re going to wrap this up here, but this overture, this prologue, this story John is telling us reveals the way of God in our lives. It helps us understand the meaning of life, why the world is still messed up when people reject Jesus. It even begins to show us why this story is worth believing.
In fact, for John, in his whole gospel, he’s very, very intentional about directly applying this whole book to the readers. There are two places at the end of the gospel where he actually addresses the readers. He says, “You! I care about you. Here is why I wrote this book.” They’re on your sheet. John 19, talking about the crucifixion, he said, “He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.” (John 19:35)
Right in the middle of reading the story of the crucifixion, John says, “By the way, as I’m writing this, I want you to believe it.” Then later at the end of John 20 after the resurrection, he says this book was “…written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:35) John is saying, “I want you to believe.”
Here’s the big story, the big parabola, the U shape, and right there at the heart of it is Jesus meeting everyday people like us. We’ll see it in the gospel of John. Cripples and blind people, people who’ve been excluded, people who work jobs nobody cares about. Jesus shows up, shows up, shows up, and says, “I have grace for you. I have truth for you. I’d like to invite you into new, eternal kind of life. I want to invite you into this family of God.”
It’s very simple. Right here it says that those who did receive him and believed in his name he gave power to become children of God. For many of us, we read that; it’s a no brainer. Why would we not receive this grace upon grace, this fullness, this truth? Why would we not receive it?
But part of receiving Jesus in this way means we receive that whole big story. When we receive Jesus we receive the truth that God is like Jesus, which is very good news if we need forgiveness and recognize our brokenness, but it’s very bad news if we’re bent on greed when God is generous or when we’re bent on vengeance when God is merciful.
Part of receiving Jesus means we receive him as the Creator, the one who gives meaning and order and purpose to our lives and to the world, which is very good news if we recognize that we need that help, but it’s bad news if we think we want to be the masters of our own destiny, define our own purpose, make our own way in the world.
Receiving Jesus means we receive our role in the kingdom as those who point to the light like John the Baptist, which is very good news if we realize we’re not the light ourselves, but kind of bad news if we’re addicted to being needed and we’re so prideful that we want to be the light all the time.
Receiving Jesus means we receive that whole story. It’s very simple. Believing and receiving, welcomed into the family of God. It’s very simple. Even God himself does it. He’s the one who gives the power for us to be welcomed into the family. Not by the will of the flesh; by the power of God.
This morning for us, we’re drawn to that very place. We’ve heard the great sweep of the story, and now what will you do with Jesus? We’ll take Communion in a moment, and for a long, long time, the church from Ephesus to 14 years ago in this building to Israel and Jerusalem where believers gather to even this morning we’ve been gathering, and one of the ways we express receiving and believing in Jesus is by taking Communion together. So I encourage all of us to open our hearts to God that we might receive Jesus in fresh ways.