Scripture: Jeremiah 31:7-14; John 1:1-5,10-18
Title: In the beginning…

Sermons are meant to be heard – listen along here.

 

Happy New Year!

Though the days of staying up until midnight have long since passed for me, and the excitement of New Year’s Eve has waned considerably since that first time my parents let me stay up to ring in the new year, I still appreciate the sentiments of the new year. (Though for any out there like me, netflix has a fake countdown you can watch whenever you want to and then go to bed at a reasonable hour).  The new year is all about new beginnings.
We can say goodbye to all the difficulties and stresses of the previous year and dream about how this year is going to be different, maybe better.  People make resolutions, ways they are going to change, eat healthier, exercise more, be nicer, spend less.  

And yet, most of those resolutions don’t last all that long.
(pic: https://www.instagram.com/p/_4NSzSG9Z1/?taken-by=instachaaz)

The newness wears off pretty quickly. At least it feels that way.  
But still we embrace the changing of the year and all that it can bring.  

John’s Gospel today begins with this same newness.
And it should.
Because John begins his Gospel with three little words: In the beginning.
Anyone listening to and reading this Gospel would immediately make the connection to Genesis 1. Maybe you did as well.
Genesis 1 begins with these same three words: In the beginning.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  

John knows exactly what he’s doing when he begins the Good News of Jesus with these three very familiar words.
Jesus coming into the world is a new beginning.
It’s a re-creation.
So: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
John is setting the stage here.  The whole first chapter, but in particular, the first five verses, remind us who exactly this Jesus that we’re about to hear about is.  
He was there at the start.
At creation.  When God made the heaven and earth, Jesus was there.
John is reminding that Jesus is God.  There isn’t a difference.

And this is important because it is God who comes to us in the world.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

This verse is something we hear a lot around Christmas time. And, for those of you who have already taken down your decorations, Christmas isn’t officially over yet.  
It’s still Christmas in the church. (At least until Wednesday.)

The Word became flesh and lived among us.
Some translations say God took on flesh (literally God with skin) to be with us.
Or that God dwells, or even tabernacles with us.
That word literally means to build a tent and live right where we are.
God became human and came to be with us.
This is what Christmas is all about.
That God, creator of the world, looked at that world and didn’t give up.
God didn’t see all the brokenness and walk away.
God walked into it.
God sent Jesus to make creation whole again.  

 

The final three verses of today’s Gospel are some of my favorites in all of John.
John is still in the prologue.  He hasn’t even talked about Jesus at all yet, not his birth, not his baptism, not his ministry … John is still building up to all of that.
This prologue is here because first John wants us to know what this means that the word became flesh.
John wants to tell us what Jesus coming into the world will do for us and what all the things to follow this introduction are going to accomplish.  
And John knows his audience.  He knows they are wondering what happens to the law with this new beginning.  

Verse 17-18: The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus. No one has ever seen God. It is God the Son who has made him known.  

We still need the law – a new beginning doesn’t toss out the old – we still have all the things that happened in the last year in our minds and they aren’t suddenly erased just because the calendar changed. So we still need the law.  We still need reminders of how to live and love.  
But the law is only the law, and Jesus brings more.
Jesus brings us, as John says, “grace and truth”

And Jesus brings us to God.
You want to know what God is like?
You want to understand God better?
John makes it pretty clear that when we have questions about God, we look to Jesus.

Jesus is how God makes himself known to us.

The law isn’t made obsolete when Jesus comes, it is made complete.
We understand what it means to love when we see Jesus love.
We understand what it means to forgive when we see Jesus forgive.  

Jesus is more than the law.  
Jesus is God made flesh.   

Verse 16: From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
This verse is a promise.
We hear that Jesus is God made human and being with us and this is what happens to us as a result.  From his fullness we receive grace upon grace.
Fullness here can mean presence -so it would read from his presence with us we have received – grace upon grace.
There’s a key word in this short verse and it’s not the one you might think – it’s not grace, it’s ALL.
We have all received.
Not some of us.
Not only those who hear the stories and words and miracles to come after this prologue.
Not only those who say the right things and do the right things and believe the right things –

But all.  
Because God sends his son to be with us, ALL receive grace upon grace.
I just love that phrase:
Grace upon grace.
The birth of Jesus is an act of grace by God – and then everything that follows is an experience of that grace.
Grace on top of grace on top of grace.
The presence of Christ in the world, sent to re-create, to make all things new – is the first act of grace.
It’s a new beginning.

Today we celebrate new beginnings.
A new year.
A re-creation of the world.
And a new us.

But this new us isn’t found in the latest fad diet or gym membership.
Re-creation doesn’t come from us.
It always and every day comes from God.

And thank goodness.
Because God’s re-creation doesn’t plateau and lose steam.

God doesn’t fall off his resolutions in mid February.
That’s all us.
But not God.  

God is in the business of re-creating.
Of making things new.
Of making US new.
Every day.

In a few minutes we come forward to receive the reminder of our new life in our outstretched hand.
And we remember once again that God is with us, God will always be with us, and has always been with us, from the very beginning.  

AMEN
(video  http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/with-us)