Pastor Scott Jonas
I am the Word
12/3/17
I’m
really excited about today because it is the beginning of the church year, the
first Sunday in advent and we start a new series in the Gospel of John. Today is John Chapter 1 and we dive into this
book until Resurrection Sunday with John 20.
Each Sunday opens another chapter.
It allows us to get to know Jesus through the eyes of his youngest
disciple, the one who Jesus loved.
We
are blessed to have four gospels, four accounts of the Life of Jesus. They have a lot in common. They all stress Jesus as Lord and
Savior. They all focus on the last week
of his life. They highlight the cross
and resurrection as the most important three days in history. But they have their differences. Look at this cross. It has the four authors on it Matthew Mark, Luke
and John. Many think that Matthew or
Luke were written first. They go into
eye witnesses detail. The book of
Matthew is often pictured as a Lion, the Lion of Judah. Matthew is written for a Jewish audience who
understand references to the Old Testament like God as the Lion of Judah. Luke is represented by the image of an
ox. Luke emphasizes Jesus as the great
servant of men and sacrifice for all humanity.
Next, I believe that Mark was written.
His book’s image is of a man. It
is the plainest, the most straightforward but also the quickest paced and most
thrilling. Finally there is John,
represented by an eagle. The Eagle flys
high over a scene. He has perspective
and insight. The Gospel of John is not
just telling the facts but giving meaning from the life of Jesus.
John
wants us to look beyond the miracles and teachings of Jesus and see his
identity. Jesus is more than a healer,
more than a prophet. He is God. He is the God of the Jews and God of the
Gentiles. John knows you know the stories
in the other Gospels: The nativity, the baptism of Jesus, the feeding of the
5,000, and such. Now he wants to put
them into perspective. John doesn’t have
any parables. That ground has been
covered. Instead, he is reflecting on
his time with Jesus and showing how He is so much more than we realize.
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
One
of the ways, John explains the significance of Jesus is by connecting His
Gospel to Old Testament themes. The introduction
of John sounds like the first paragraph of Genesis.
In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth.
John wants to
explain Jesus to the Whole World. He
starts with the language of the Jews.
They would recognize right way what John was doing.
In the beginning
was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him…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… For the Law was given through Moses; grace
and truth came through Jesus Christ.
A jewish audience
hears Jesus is the Word. That is packed
with meaning for their people. The Old
Testament Jews spoke Hebrew which is an unusual language. We have 170,000 words in the Oxford
dictionary. Anyone guess how many words
are in Hebrew? 10,000. Less words mean that individual words have
more power. They believed that words are
infused with energy. Words make things
happen. The Genesis Patriarch Isaac is
tricked into speaking words of blessing over his son Jacob. They can’t be taken back because words have
power. We call them , “The Ten
Commandments” but they could be
translated “The Ten words.” God will
make sure that his words do what he says.
Words are not just sounds. To the
eastern people; it is a power which does things.
Here
is something that maybe you didn’t know.
When Jesus was born, Hebrew was a dying language. Almost no one spoke the language of the Old
Testament on a day to day basis. The
last book of the Bible that was written in Hebrew was probably Nehemiah in 400
B.C. Over that 400 years before the
nativity, Israel moved from Hebrew in the home to a language called
Aramaic. Scholars read Hebrew in first
century Palestine but no one else.
Aramaic is to Hebrew what modern English is to Anglo Saxon spoken in the
middle ages.
This is why this
is important. The Old Testament was
translated from Hebrew to Aramaic. These
translations were called the Targums. In
the synagogue the scriptures were read in the original Hebrew, but then they
were translated into Aramaic and the targums were used as translations. When translating the scriptures the scholars
of the time changed the words. Because
it was the thinking of the time. Whenever
the name for God appeared they substituted it for “The word of God.” They would use “the word of God” instead of “Yahweh’, the name of God. If Genesis 1 was read it would not say “In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In Jesus’ day it would say, “In the
beginning, the word of God created the heavens and the earth. So when John starts by saying “In the
begining was the Word and the word was with god and the word was God”, John
begins with Jesus as God. Jesus comes to
earth claiming, “I am the Word of God.”
Is
Jesus your Word? Do you believe that he
has the power to make things happen when he speaks? Do you trust that if Jesus makes a promise,
it is a done deal. Is Jesus your
Word? He says that he came to seek and
save the lost, that includes you. He
says that if you come and see Him then you will see heaven opened and the
Angels of God ascending and descending on Him.
He says if you follow him, you will never be alone. He says that through the water and the word
you are born again. Say it “I am born
again.” He says, he did not come to
condemn the world but to save it. Jesus
says that if you drink his water you will never be thirsty again. Say, “I am satisfied.” He says Get up, take up your mat and
walk. Say “I am healed.” If you believe Jesus when he says, “I am the
Word” then you believe that the one who said “Let us make man” is the same one who spoke at your baptism. The same one who said “Let there be light” is
the same one who speaks forgiveness in our confession/ absolution. The same one who said “Let the earth sprout vegetation” is the same one who tells you to “Take and
eat this is my body given for you.”
John was speaking
not just to a Jewish audience. He was
also speaking to a gentile one. The
greeks would not see the connection between Jesus and the Word of God in the
scriptures. They has a whole different
understanding of “The Word.” John was
wise enough to know that “The Word worked in the Jewish definition and the
greek one. The Gospels were written
not in Hebrew, not primarily in Aramaic, but in Greek. It a modern language that could be spoken in
the whole known world. In Greek, the
word for word was Logos. In the
beginning was the Logos.
In Greek thought
Wisdom and Reason were paramount. Some
believe that the Book of John was written in Ephesus. Coincidently in Ephesus 560 b.c, there was an
Ephesisan philosopher called Heraclitus whose basic idea was that everything
was in a state of flux. You have heard
his famous analogy that it is impossible to step twice into the same river. You step into the Mississippi once and you
back out. You do it again and the water
is new, the sediment has changed, some of the creatures have been swapped out. The river is always in flux. Modern philosophers call it chaos
theory. The greeks asked how can there
be any sense in a world where there was constant change. The answer according to Heraclitus was the
Logos, the word, the reason of God. The
Logos controlled the events of history.
The reason of God was the principle order under which the universe
continued to exist. The Logos was
responsible for telling us what was right and wrong. It also gave humans logic. According to greek thought the Logos holds
the world together and it is inside every person.
Jesus says not
only “I am the Word” but “I am the
Reason.” We say “Jesus is the reason
for the season.” That is very ancient
greek of you. Jesus is the Logos for the
season. Is Jesus your reason? Jesus says, “Do not labor for the bread that
perishes but for the bread that endures eternal life. The reason we work is for Jesus. Say , Jesus is the bread of Life. Jesus says, “Whoever follows me will not walk
in darkness.” The reason we can see
anything spiritual is because of Jesus.
Say “Jesus is the Light of the World.”
Jesus says, that we recognize his voice because he makes it so. The reason we belong to God is because of
Jesus. “Say, Jesus is the Good
Shepherd.” Jesus says that “We will rise
again.” The reason is because we believe
in Him. Say, Jesus is the resurrection
and the Life.”
Jesus fits all the
great themes of the Old Testament that point to God. When Moses met God he asked “If I come to the
people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’
and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to
Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I
am has sent me to you.’”
John introduces us
to the great “I am.” Between now and
Resurection Sunday you are going to get insight into the Word. We will dive into his identity. The disciple whom Jesus loved will help us to
know Jesus. And by knowing Jesus we will
know ourselves.
By Grace through
Faith