“True Light” – Sermon on Jan 5, 2014
January 5, 2014
Scripture Lessons
Proverbs 8:1, 22-31 Listen as Wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice! “The Lord formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else. I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began. I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters. Before the mountains were formed, before the hills, I was born— before he had made the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil.
I was there when he established the heavens, when he drew the horizon on the oceans. I was there when he set the clouds above, when he established springs deep in the earth. I was there when he set the limits of the seas, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. And when he marked off the earth’s foundations, I was the architect at his side.
I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence. And how happy I was with the world he created; how I rejoiced with the human family!
John 1 selections 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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Sermon: True Light
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
“In the beginning was the Word.” This passage is one of my favorites to hear, even to speak, but one I struggle to preach. It is beautiful, poetic, but so rich and dense I have a hard time figuring out a clear message, and then figuring out how to communicate a clear message in a brief amount of time. In this passage about the Word, words fail me. I suppose that is not really surprising, because this passage is not really about these scribblings on paper, or these sounds coming out of my mouth. It is, in some ways, about Jesus, but just a little bit. For Jesus, like all of us, is part of something much bigger that is being expressed here in a variety of ways.
Let’s start with the word translated as Word – logos. At the time gospel-writer John was writing, that term was full of meaning for the Jewish readers of his day. The root of the word means to pick out, to gather, to pick up. So logos is about gathering words together. It is about speaking. But it is not just about speaking, it is about communicating. The speech is just an outward form of an inward thought, and logos includes the inward thought. So logos is a thought, a saying, a decree, a precept. Logos, in a way, is the working of God’s mind, and the outward expression of that. An actual word, spoken or written, is but a symbol.
As I was figuring out this sermon, after I put together the orders of service, I realized that the passage from Proverbs expressed something about what it was that was with God in the beginning. It was wisdom, understanding, all knowledge, personified in Lady Wisdom or Sophia in this passage. So it was not Jesus, the person who walked the earth, nor even Christ, the Messiah. It was wisdom and understanding. My thought is that it was the knowledge of God as everything, the One, and the goodness of that. Total awareness, which might be called enlightenment. And from that, all things came into being. All things already were there, in God, in the awareness, and yet all things came into being. They separated, in a way, from God, and in doing so, the awareness lessened and the darkness deepened. But this was part of the plan, this was God’s own doing, that there would be separation so that there could be remembering and reunion and recognition of the oneness and the glory. What came into being was life, not just understood, but experienced. And even in the darkness of forgetting, the life was the light of all people.
John goes on to talk about the light that shines, the light which enlightens everyone. It is the same wisdom and understanding that was there in the beginning. Still there even in the forgetting, even in the darkness. The light calls to us, reminding us of who and what we truly are – children of God, born not of blood or flesh, but of God. It is only then that John talks about the logos – God’s wisdom and understanding, God’s thoughts and conceptions – taking on flesh and living among us in the form of Jesus the Messiah. This expression of God came to remind us in one more way of the truth. This incarnation of God’s creative thoughts remembered more fully, more completely, not only who he was, but who we all are.
So in some ways this passage is about Jesus, an expression of God’s creative and life-giving thought and conception. But it is, even more, about us. In the season of Advent and into Christmas we read and listened and sang the story of the birth of Jesus. John gives us no such story. He talks about Jesus’ coming, but is not concerned about his birth through blood and flesh. He wants us to know that Jesus is, beyond that, a speech from God. A gathering of divine thoughts and ideas communicated in a new form. And John concerns himself as much with the world, the world that came into being through logos, and yet did not know logos. John concerns himself with us. We came into being through enlightenment, through known goodness and love, and yet we forgot it so much that we struggle to recognize the grace and truth that God is trying to convey. John points us to Jesus as the logos, a remembering so full of God’s grace and truth that we can all remember through him. And once we remember, we are not meant to keep that enlightenment to ourselves, but we are to share it with others, to increase the light, to remind the whole world that it is all of God, all expressions of God’s glory.
And so I want to invite you to try something that I think might increase the light a bit. It is using words, but hopefully these words are effective in touching us in a deeper place, a place beyond words. If you like, you can include touch also. Put your finger tips over your heart and move in a small, clockwise circle. And repeat after me: I am a child of God, … deserving of love and respect… and God will use me…. to change the world.” One more time. How did that feel? Was it hard to say? Is it hard to believe? You might find yourself in an internal argument – me? A child of God? Me? With enlightenment to share? You may come up with all the ways you fall short of glory, all the ways you have dwelt in darkness, all the ways you let others and yourself down. But in the end, or in the beginning, those things don’t matter. What you have done, the things that have happened to you, the details of your life – they may describe you, but they don’t define you. Those are the things of the flesh, the things born of the will of humankind, not the things of God. No, you are defined, instead, by the grace and truth that you are, in the beginning, of God. In you, in all of us together is the goodness and wholeness of God. What would the world be like if more and more people knew that, and lived out that truth? Would the light grow? Would grace upon grace be received and then given? I’d like to find out. Would you?
And so I invite you to repeat this phrase, this gathered collection of words, often, in the weeks ahead. Try it for every day for a month – how’s that for a new year’s resolution? Look at yourself in the mirror as you say it, or remind yourself before you get out of bed in the morning. I am a child of God, deserving of love and respect, and God will use me to change the world. May it be so.
