December, 2006
“Reaching for the Invisible God”
John 1:1-18
Introduction: The opening lines of Howard Thurman’s famous Christmas poem, The Work of Christmas, describes where we find ourselves today--at the end of an old year and at the start of the new one. Only a week after the wonderful-ness of Christmas eve with candlelight and beautifully wrapped packages, Thurman writes:
“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins.”
These words of Howard Thurman makes sense, for as we draw closer to the end of another Advent/Christmas season, it becomes more apparent that the end of Christmas calls us to begin a new endeavor. Thurman describes it this way:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among brothers, to make music in the heart.
That seems like a tremendous task. There are plenty of people who will admit that they have made a mess of their lives--Jesus came to find the lost. People want to recover from a disastrous relationship--Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. You might be a person who has lived a good portion of your life and find yourself feeling empty especially after the rush of the Season. Jesus came to feed the hungry and fill with abundant life. You might be a person who can’t get past memories of the past that keep you from having joy in the present. Jesus came to bring joy and peace. You might say you are burned out from the stresses of life. Jesus came to bring music back into the hearts of people.
The gospel writer, John, is interested in helping us to personally experience this kind of faith--the kind that goes beyond the Christmas Season and makes an impact on our daily lives as well as extending out to others. John tells us that the reason we miss out on this exciting kind of faith is because God has run into a problem with the world and we have run into a problem with God.
In verse 10, John says, “He was in the world and the world was made through him but the world didn’t know he was there.”
What does this say to us today?
1. God Is In the Here and Now: Most of the time people are not even aware that He’s there. Even before we are Christians, He is trying to get our attention in numerous ways. We go right on missing Him, trying to do things on our own, and not including him in any of the details of our life. We go through our meaningless routines, doing what we’ve always done and getting the results we always get. We miss out on what is really life changing. We don’t make it a priority to find out where He is and what
He wants of us. We are not reaching out to Him most of the time. And therefore, he remains, invisible to us.
STORY: A journalist was assigned to Jerusalem. He moved to the city and got an apartment overlooking the wailing wall. After several weeks he realized that whenever he looked out at the wailing wall there was this old Jewish man standing there praying vigorously. The journalist wondered if he might find a story here. So he goes down to the wall and introduces himself to the man and says, “You come every day to the wall. What are you praying for?”
The Old Jewish man replies, “What am I praying for? Well, in the morning I pray for world peace. Then I pray for the unity of all people. Then I go home and have a cup of tea and come back to the wall in the afternoon to pray for the eradication of illness and disease in the world.”
The Journalist was moved by the old man’s sincerity and persistence. “You mean you have been coming to the wall every day to pray for these things?”
The old man nods.
“How long have you been doing this?” questioned the journalist?
“How long have I been doing this? The old fellow thinks about it for a minute and says, “Maybe twenty, twenty five years.’
The journalist is flabbergasted. “You mean you have been coming to the wall every day for twenty or twenty five years to pray for peace, the unity of people and the eradication of disease?”
The old man nods.
“Well how does it feel to come and pray every day for so many years for these same things?”
The old man replies, “How does it feel? Why it feels like I’m talking to a wall.”
Maybe that’s how it feels to you, too, sometimes when you are living through difficult days. You don’t see God in your situation or in your prayers. It’s like when you are talking to God it’s like “talking to a wall.”
Writer, Philip Yancy, says that we have a difficult time relating to God because we can’t see Him or hear Him or measure His response to our prayers. Did he hear them or are we talking to a wall? Sometimes we think that God is “up there” far away from our struggles in the here and now. We think of heaven as a place where there are streets of gold, but for us there are “only potholes.”
2. The Problem of the Invisibility of God: John wants us to know that our streets are filled with something besides potholes and problems. God is here, among us. Even though we can’t see Him with our physical eyes, He is here. How do we know this?
verse 14 says, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory.”
The invisible God made himself visible to the world in the form of a human baby who became a teenager and later an adult who lived among us and who walked the dusty roads and experienced the “potholes” of life. He traveled from place to place preaching Good News to the captives and freed them from their captivity of sin. He loved the loveless, forgave the sinful, lifted the downcast, healed the sick and spoke of a new kingdom--the kingdom of God. But he was not referring to a far away, “up there” kingdom--but a “right here” on earth kingdom. He told the people “the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).
As we struggle to see the invisible God in our individual lives, how can He become real to us. How can we see His work in our daily lives? How can we see the work of Christmas continue into January and the rest of the year?
What we have to do is come and meet Jesus for ourselves. This happens by faith. We already have been given the invitation, but we often hold back because of numerous reasons--thinking our way is better, fear of where He might lead us, not ready to go His way, too busy. Just not reaching out to Him. Not important. Not a priority.
When we “reach for the invisible God”, we will find him. Sometimes we don’t think this will happen. Colossians 1:13,14 says, “[God] has delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins.”
STORY: Jack was a man whose whole life fell apart in the span of about a year. His wife left him because he was a workaholic. His 15 year old daughter left home, his college age son dropped out of school, and the business he had built up collapsed around him. His business partner turned against him. And then on top of that he found out he had an advanced form of bone cancer.
In desperation he sought out religion to help him through the disaster, but religion offered him no answer. He tried self-help books, but they didn’t help either. Then he started reading the Bible. There was nothing there for him either. Then one day he got to the gospels and began to read about Jesus. It struck him that the Jesus he was reading about was different from the Jesus he remembered from Sunday school decades ago. This Jesus was involved in the lives of real people, people experiencing divorce and separation, alienation and illness, disappointment and even death. In the process he forgot about why he had opened the Bible in the first place--to find a cure for the cancer. He found Jesus gradually become visible to him.
Three months later when the cancer claimed his life, he was found in bed surrounded by notebooks full of all the things he had discovered about Jesus. And the remarkable thing was that when they gathered for the funeral there in the front row sat his wife, his daughter and grandson, and his son, and even his business partner. Each one stood to tell the story about how, in the last several months, their lives had been touched by the gift of grace through this man. Each had received a letter or a phone call. He had even in the last months of his life started to help an elderly woman who lived across the hall. She was house bound and each day he made some sandwiches and took them over to her. They chatted as they ate lunch together.
She summed it all up by saying, “When Jack showed up at my door, it was as if Jesus Himself had come to have lunch. And Jack’s son spoke up and said, “There was something different about our Dad in the last months of his life. It was like you could see God in him.”
I’m not sure how all this takes place, but today’s scripture tells us that “to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God...” (John 1:12).
3. The Work of Christmas Goes On: Reaching out to the invisible God is not an impossibility in spite of all the problems surrounding us individually or in our world. This is the greatest time--surrounded by needs--to let Jesus become more visible in your life. Luke 12:32 says, “Your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
How? Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
When you come and meet Jesus for yourself and immerse yourself in his life and teachings, you can’t help but change. And when the invisible God becomes visible to you, then you become the visible expression to others around you.
When the star in the sky is gone
When the kings and princes are home
When the shepherds are back with their flocks
The work of Christmas begins!
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To find the hungry
To release the prisoner
To teach the nations
To bring Christ to all
To make music in your heart.--Howard Thurman
Conclusion: As this New Year approaches, may you meet the invisible God for yourself by reaching out to the visible Jesus. And may the work of Christmas reach out to others through you all year long.
Let us pray:
