Where the Word Comes to Rest

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

January 3, 2010

Text: Sirach 24: 1-12 and John 1: 1-18

Once upon a time there was a King. He was mighty, powerful, handsome, wealthy beyond anyone’s dreams. Whatever he wanted, he could have. No one crossed him. When people would speak his name, it would be with reverence and awe.

One day this king, as he was traveling through his realm, saw a woman who so fascinated him that he could not take his eyes off her. She was strikingly beautiful, but there was more. Day by day as he watched her from a distance, he realized that she was beautiful within as well. He fell hopelessly in love with her.

There was a problem, however. Being such a wealthy, powerful person, he could never be sure whether anyone really liked him or loved him------because he knew they might just be currying his favor, telling him what he wanted to hear. Or maybe they only feared what he might do to them, and therefore smiled at him to keep him at a distance.

This was especially true of the poor people of his kingdom. And the woman of his dreams, the woman he was hopelessly in love with, was one of the poor.

So how could he really let her know of his love for her?

He thought, “Maybe I can win her love by making her wealthy like I am!” But then she might only be thankful, but not really in love with him. Or, maybe she might think that he changed her economic status because he could not love her as she was.

Then he thought to himself, “Maybe if I let her see me in my finest robes and chariot or in my fine palaces-----maybe I could so overwhelm her with my power and wealth that she would know how much I loved her, and she would love me.”

But, he thought, then she might just be afraid of me, and fear is not the same as love. Her fear is not what I want; I want her to love me not fear me. I want her to know how much I love her, and for her to love me.

After sleepless days and nights, he knew what he must do to win her love. “I will become poor, like she is, and live in the same village with her. Then, she will know me for who I am; and if she comes to love me, it will not be for my wealth, or my power, but simply because of my deep love for her.”

I think it was Soren Kierkegaard who first told this story---though I have embellished it some. It is a homely way of telling the soaring, beautiful message of the Gospel of John.  “The Word [translate it as wisdom, as reason, as love, as creativity] became flesh and blood [human] and dwelt among us [tabernacled with us], full of grace and truth. And we have beheld his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

From Sirach, lady wisdom, God’s wisdom, personified as a wise woman counselor, asks herself “Where shall I come to live  dwell on the earth? And God says, “Rest and live in the people ofIsrael and Judah, the Hebrew people. Through their life and worship and history, I will show the world’d people how to dwell in my creation the right way.”

Remembering this idea, the writer of the Gospel of John begins his great work by making the bold claim:

 God’s love [the Word, creative wisdom, power and grace----God himself] has come to us where we live, in all of our poverty and fallenness and need. “In Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” (Colossians)

And God has come in the son of Mary and Joseph, not to overwhelm us with power, but to draw us in an answering love. God chose to reveal himself to us in Jesus: in his life and teaching, in his suffering and death.  And he is strong, loving and wise, beyond any others.

This is a grand idea, at the very least. (Some day I want to write a book on “Great Ideas that Have Had Me.” I was, early in my Christian walk, captured by John Chapter One. This will be in my top 10. If you do not ever memorize any text, memorize this one!)

It is a scandalous idea to some, foolishness to others. Some cannot believe Jesus was really human at all; others cannot believe that Jesus was in any sense divine at all. (Someone once wrote that unnecessary consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds!)

 But we must be honest in this season, of all times. In Jesus, heaven and earth overlapped, once for all. In all humility, we hold this to be true, as St Augustine wrote in the fourth century:

“Pass by [encounter] him, Jesus, the man, and you will come to God. Do not seek for any other way to come to God; for if he had not vouchsafed [deigned, chosen] to be the way, we should all have gone astray. Therefore, I say, do not seek the way: the way has come to thee. Rise and walk.”

We must not lay claim to being smart enough to have found God. We only claim that God has found us. And this “being found” has made all the difference. Jesus is the heart of God, planted in our human story. And through the Spirit of God, Jesus is our contemporary. King Jesus has come to live among us poor and wandering mortals!

This is the truth of Christmas.

What do you do with this news?

Here is the invitation:

“To all who receive him, to those who put trust in him, he [even now] gives the right to become children of God, born not of human stock….but of God.”

Or as Eugene Peterson translates John’s words,

“But whoever did want him,
      who believed he was who he claimed
      and would do what he said,
   He made to be their true selves,
      their child-of-God selves.”(The Message, John 1)

If you come to the table today, I invite you to receive anew Jesus Christ, the grace and truth of God, receive him into your heart and mind,  and put your trust in him----and by so doing receive your true self as gift and promise.

Note: One of the best resources on the theology of the Gospel of John is an out of print book, Jesus Through Many Eyes: Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament by Stephen Neill, Fortress Press, 1976, ISBN 0-8006-1220-5. It is worth searching for on line as a used book!