Love Found A Way: To Bridge The Gap
John 1:14
Intro: (video clip - intro scene in "The God’s Must Be Crazy")
But it wasn’t garbage that came from heaven, like it was in the video clip. It wasn’t the discarded leftovers casually tossed overboard, having fulfilled their usefulness and now needing the inconvenience of disposal.
And it wasn’t an accident.
It was God; in the flesh. It was God the Son, choosing, willing, to enter into all the frailty and fragility which is human existence.
He knew He would hurt. He knew He would hunger and thirst. He knew He would get dirty and smelly. He knew He would love and have His heart broken, though that would be nothing new. And He knew He would die. That would be something new. But, Love Found A Way.
Review:
We have spent this fall walking through the story of the early church in the book of Acts. We have seen the story of community – of authentic, Biblical community – in relationship. And we have been seeking to discover that in our own lives.
We have seen the resurrected Jesus – that now grown infant of Bethlehem – ascend into heaven and promise the power of the Holy Spirit. We have seen what happened to the community when the Spirit came – how they were empowered to love God and love one another in such a way that the entire city of Jerusalem was challenged and confronted by the love they saw. We have seen how followers of Jesus loved each other even with their cash – holding nothing back and refusing to watch others suffer when they had means to do something about it.
We saw what happened when the “establishment” was threatened – they reacted with violence and persecution. We saw what happened when barriers of culture and tradition were broken. And we saw what happened when God decided to change the heart of His fiercest opponent.
And do you know what theme emerges as I look back over Acts 1-9? Love Found A Way. It found a way to reunite the disciples and turn them into powerful witnesses. Love found a way to build true community, love found a way to overcome barriers, love even found a way to change the heart of Saul of Tarsus.
And just to wrap that story up, let me share Acts 9:31 “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” There were good times, God kept working, His people matured and ministered, they were sailing with the wind.
And it began in Bethlehem.
God Joins Our Community:
As I think about our journey these last months, a journey of beginning to discover Biblical community, it is really about closing the gap between us – about coming closer to one another, discovering who we are and extending love and care and compassion. We have found that that takes time, it takes energy, sometimes it is difficult as we have to work through conflict and hurt feelings and unmet expectations. Essentially, being in community means that we are closer to one another, that we have built bridges based on a foundation of love and of care. Instead of being alone, isolated, adrift – in community we are together, connected, and grounded.
Our text for this morning, our first Sunday of Advent, is John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Word became flesh. God the Son became God the human. God joined our community, He bridged the gap that exists between us because of sin. Eugene Petersen puts it this way in his paraphrase, “The Message”: “The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.” That is a pretty good way to put it, it fairly accurately describes what happened. God moved into the neighbourhood.
CS Lewis once wrote, “Lying at your feet is your dog. Imagine, for the moment, that your dog and every dog is in deep distress. Some of us love dogs very much. If it would help all the dogs in the world to become like men, would you be willing to become a dog? Would you put down your human nature, leave your loved ones, your job, hobbies, your art and literature and music, and choose instead of the intimate communion with your beloved, the poor substitute of looking into the beloved’s face and wagging your tail, unable to smile or speak? Christ by becoming man limited the thing which to Him was the most precious thing in the world; his unhampered, unhindered communion with the Father.”
If I can rephrase just a little: God moved into the doghouse. He “made His dwelling with us.”
That is community. That is God the Son abandoning all the glory of heaven to enter into our existence. He bridged the gap.
The actual word that John uses, which we have translated as “dwelling,” is actually much more pregnant with meaning than we see at first glance. A literal translation is “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” It is a word that, when read, would immediately remind the reader of the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. They would recollect how the people of God constructed a large, portable, tent-like structure for worshipping God, called a Tabernacle. They would be reminded of how God was present to them in their worship in the tabernacle, as they journeyed through the wilderness. In a very real way, it was God’s tent in the middle of all of their tents.
And that is what John is telling us. God pitched His tent in the middle of our tents, so that He could be present with us in our journey. I like CS Lewis’ question, “would you become a dog…”, only because it helps us think of the story from the perspective of Jesus. But it is really the wrong question – we don’t have that option! Instead, the real question is this: what are you and I going to do with the fact that God has moved into our neighbourhood?
We can ignore the new neighbour. We can be hostile. We can make it difficult. Or we can get to know Him. Go to His house and talk and listen. Invite Him over for coffee. Build a relationship. And maybe even eventually invite Him to come and live with you, sign over the deed of the house and let Him assume the mortgage payments, let Him set the priorities and direct the investments of time and money. You see, God has come, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and the question for us is: what are we going to do with that? He loves us, are we going to love Him back?
Benjamin Franklin said, “How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts. O! ‘tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
The love of God found a way to enter into community with us. What are you going to do with that?
We Have Seen It; Now We Are Witnesses:
After making the incredible proclamation that God has become flesh and dwelt among us, John offers the proof: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father.”
It answers the skeptics’ questions: “Ya, right. Prove it.” John says that he knows this because He saw it. He was there. He was a witness. He knows that God became man because he knew the man – he walked with Him and talked with Him and fished with Him and laughed with Him. He knew Jesus, both as God and as human.
John didn’t share anything He hadn’t experienced. Nothing He didn’t know firsthand. And as we talk about how Love Found A Way to join the community of people, to bridge the gap between us and God, we also need to only be witnesses to what we have witnessed and experienced.
What was your experience of meeting God in your “neighbourhood”? How has that changed who you are, how has that helped you live a full life? How has that enabled you to respond to all the sources of pain and struggle? That is what we have to share. And that is what our world needs to know: Love found a way; it found a way to you, it can find a way to others around you.
The message is incredible. It is good news, like the angels said!! But it needs to be delivered. I want to ask each of you to do something, not for me, not for the church – but for Jesus and for a person you care about. I’m going to tell you what it is in a moment, but first, to build some courage, let me tell you this:
In the year 2000, Reg Bibby (a sociologist and foremost expert on the state of religion in Canada), surveyed Canadians and asked this question, among others: “Would you consider the possibility of being more involved in a religious group if you found it to be worthwhile for yourself or your family?” 55% of adults and 39% of teens said yes. Now, for clarity, about 21% are active, regular attendees already, so we can assume they would answer positively. But that still leaves more than one out of every three adults, not currently involved, that were open to “being involved in a religious group” if it was worthwhile. I believe it is, and I believe that they will find that it is here at Laurier.
So here is what I want to ask each of you to do: invite someone to come to one of our Christmas services. Just invite them to come and hear a little bit about how Love Found A Way. I believe God wants people to know about how He became a child, to save us and fill our lives, and I’d love to have to add extra chairs or kick the Armstrong family our of their pew to make room for people who really need to hear that the Love of God moved their neighbourhood, so that they could experience a love beyond their imagination, a love so good that they leave asking, “I don’t know, it sounds too good to be true. Could it really be???” In your bulletin you’ll find a little invitation card to help pass along the details. Think of a person right now. Think of their name, their face. Now think of how much God loves them, and how His Love Found A Way to come and meet them in their journey. Now decide to act, decide to extend the invitation, and leave the response to God.
Full of Grace and Truth:
As John says, he saw the glory of the Word, and it was “full of grace and truth.” And that is the message we are going to convey in our Christmas services. It is not a message of judgment but of forgiveness, it is not a message of condemnation but of grace. The message of truth is that God found a way to bridge the gap between us, and He can heal and He can fix all that is messed up and wrong in our lives. The truth is that sin is an infectious puss that contaminates our wounds and makes us sick and creates distance between us and God. But Love Found A Way past all of that, and came to us as a helpless infant, to save us from all that exists to make our lives miserable.
The grace is for us all.
Conclusion:
Worship is about seeing who God is and responding. We rearranged the order of service a little this morning so that we would have more opportunity to respond following this reflection on John 1:14. As the worship team comes, I invite you to close your eyes and hear the words of John one more time: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
