Genesis 1: 1-3; John 1: 10-18

Incarnation

We have talked about the first three verses about the Bible and the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  We saw that while Matthew, Mark and Luke in their Gospels really ground the story of God with people on earth.  John has more theological and mysterious approach.  John really has a sense of the holy.  And as we try to bridge the story of creation with the story of the coming of the Messiah, probably John strikes the right tone.  We have also seen that one way of bringing these two stories, both of which are about new beginnings, together is by talking about “energy.”   I was having a skype conversation with my cousin at Christmas.  He is a musician. And I asked him where he was with the whole religion thing. And he said that he thought a lot of it was about energy. Now that sounds a bit New Age perhaps, but it is really not far off the mark I think.  Anything that happens pretty much requires energy. Energy is applied. It flows from one place to another.    There is a Far Side cartoon that shows a cave man with a stone cart and under the stone cart are four stone wheels.  The only problem is that the wheels under the stone cart are square! The cave man says something like this to his buddy: “Do you ever have the feeling you’re on the verge of something groundbreaking?”  Friends, the cave man is applying his energy to the invention of a cart, but unless he applies that energy to making round wheels, he is never going to make that cart move. Energy is always being applied. Today’s texts really force the issue.

Now imagine we were in a courtroom and were to make the case for the statement “God is love,” what would we say?  As Christians we should say: “Jesus.” Jesus is how God shows God’s love.  This is what John 1 verse 18 really says: no one has seen God, but Jesus is the way God shows Who God is, what God is like.  But then we would have to come up with exhibits: exhibit A: Bethlehem, exhibit B the sermon on the mount, exhibit C the way Jesus welcomes children, exhibit D the resurrection etc. etc.  The judge might ask: but how does the Creator of the Universe wind up getting involved in love of human beings. We are talking about billions of planets and millions of years.  Isn’t the creative force of the universe too impersonal to be involved in our lives? This is how I think it works.  Of course because science is always coming up with new discoveries, this is always going to be a work in progress. For instance astronomers have identified enormous black holes in the universe where things can just disappear. But they cannot agree on whether there is matter in those black holes or whether there is nothing.  Now, hello, if you guys can’t make sense of that, how can a minister? But we do our best.  Friends, what if unconditional love was the most sophisticated, purest, most advanced application of energy there is?  What if all life forms when they evolve can never get any better than when they are loving another unconditionally.  This kind of love in its purest form is rare. I think we all know that.  Love comes with strings attached in most situations.  Love involves give and take.  But this is the romantic leap of the Christian faith: that the creative force of the universe ultimately seeks a loving relationship with creation and that this love is unconditional.  To believe that is a leap for sure.  But the alternative is pretty horrifying and that is that we are just byproduct and soon enough waste products of a cold impersonal universe.  Jesus shows us Who God is ultimately and deeply.  Jesus is the purest application of energy imaginable.  He loves His enemies, He welcomes everyone, His anger is about injustice and hyprocrisy, He asks for nothing for Himself and sacrifices Himself.   Once in a while, we see that in a human being, if only briefly in someone like Mother Theresa, or in the jailed Nelson Mandela, or in someone imprisoned for their faith, or in Gandhi or in the acts of people whose name no one knows  who do something heroic and selfless.  Unconditional love, a spiritual embrace of another human being pushes through as the purest form of energy.  Yes it is rare, but also it happens everyday, somewhere, perhaps this very moment; perhaps in Tacloban in The Philippines, or on the Syrian border or in South Sudan. I wish I were more capable of it.  But these acts are not from us or about us, they come from somewhere else.  They come from spirit,  perhaps even the Holy Spirit. It is sad but what mostly we see on television is energy applied badly and dysfunctionally and yes in an evil way.  But the story of Jesus is our hope that unconditional, selfless love can push through and find its way through.

Friends, John 1: 18 I think says that Jesus is the ultimate exhibit of God’s unconditional and selfless love, energy perfectly applied in a messy world where energy floats and bashes around chaotically it seems.  That that energy will be victorious is our abiding hope. Thanks be to God.