What Child Is This
What Child Is This
Dec. 29, 2019
Jay Bartow, Pastor Emeritus
First Presbyterian Church of Monterey
Text: John 1:1-18
We have been enjoying singing favorite carols this morning, which is a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas. By the way, Christmas is a feast of twelve Days in the Christian Calendar, not just a single day. That explains the song about the twelve days of Christmas. I have chosen a favorite scripture passage for reflection on this first Sunday in Christmas. The first chapter of John is a masterpiece that harkens back to the opening words of the Bible, “In the beginning,” and links them to the birth of Jesus Christ, the Word, who was with God and was God and through whom all things were made. The scope of those words is breathtaking. The passage goes on to say that the world by and large did not grasp what happened in the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. His reception in his hometown of Nazareth was tepid turning to hostile, leading Jesus to say that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown.
But what does it mean that the Word became flesh? In Greek thought, logos, which is translated word, had a long and rich history. By the time this Gospel was written, likely toward the close of the First Century, there were probably 100,000 Greeks in the church for every Jewish believer in Jesus as Messiah. That concept of Messiah, the anointed one who would reestablish the Davidic kingdom and rescue Israel from its pagan oppressors was unknown to Greeks and didn’t speak to them. So the author of this fourth Gospel found a word which belonged to both Jewish and Greek thought.
To the Jew a word was far more than mere sound; a word was something which had an active and independent existence, and which actually did things. God spoke the world into existence: “Let there be light, and there was light.” In Isaiah 55 we read, “So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is 55:11 RSV)
For Greeks logos meant not only word, but reason. The logos was nothing less that the mind of God, controlling this world and controlling every person within it. The writer of this Gospel said to the Greeks, “For centuries you have been thinking and writing and dreaming about the logos, the power which made the world, the power which keeps the order of the world, the power by which humans come into contact with God. Jesus is that logos come down to earth. The mind of God became a person.” (Wm Barclay The Gospel of John Vol 1 pp. 13- 14)
Do you catch the difference? Not an impersonal power, but a person incarnating the heart and mind of God. Think about that, ponder that: God in the flesh, God accommodating God’s self to us so that we can see what is on God’s mind and in God’s heart. “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate deity, Pleased in flesh with us to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.” Charles Wesley packed some solid theology into that carol, didn’t he? And in the next stanza he reminds us, “Light and life to all he brings,” which is exactly what John says, reminding us that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
But the sad fact is that not all embraced the light and life offered them. Light exposes darkness and not everyone appreciates having the darkness they harbor exposed to the light. The religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day certainly didn’t. They conspired to eliminate him, but the light continues to shine in the darkness, and you and are drawn here today by that light. The great good news is that when we receive Jesus Christ, when we believe in his name, which is to say his character and what he stood for, we become children of God.
It took me a while to learn about the word made flesh and the invitation to receive him, to invite him to rule in my mind and heart and direct my steps. But when I did, I found a dimension to life I had not imagined, a sense of being comfortable in my own skin, loved just as I was, entrusted with carrying on the good work Jesus began. What drew me to Christ and keeps drawing me is his amazing and boundless love. Listen to what Dr. Stephen Post, a distinguished professor at Case Western University, who has been exploring the transforming power of love, a subject largely unexplored by academia, says of Jesus:
Jesus the Christ, revealed the divine unlimited love (agape) that underlies all of the universe and is the basis of all that we call goodness, both ethically and spiritually. Every aspect of his life was a once-in-history revelation of a perfectly exceptionless, enduring, pure, wise, and energetic love. In his life Jesus demonstrated the many forms that agape must take in response to human needs. Among these were compassion, forgiveness, attentive listening, mirth, creativity (e.g. His amazing Parables), loyalty, celebration, immense courage, and healing. Not one human being was ever wronged in any way whatsoever by Jesus, and there was no accusation that could stand against him. Why? He was, and is, perfect self-giving love. His atoning death was for all time the most absolutely vivid expression of perfectly pure and perfectly effective love. This revelation of divine love cuts history life a knife through butter-there is everything before, there is everything after.
Isn’t that a powerful summary of the love of Christ? When I first read that in 2007 I said, “Amen”. I wished I had written that, but I am grateful that he did, because it gives expression to how I feel about Jesus.
I want to share one other quote which sets forth the love of Jesus, and it comes from a distinguished author and playwright, Dorothy Sayers, known most widely for her Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but who also wrote essays and theology. Listen to what she says about Jesus and women. This is from a series of essays published in 1947under the title Unpopular Opinions.
Perhaps it is no wonder that women were first at the cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The Women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female, who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows it pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about women’s nature.
And what shall we say of Jesus’s love for children and his charge to us to become like them if we would experience the gracious reign of God. What other religious leader says anything about children, much less makes them exemplars of how to approach life?
I want to close by urging you in the year ahead to read, reflect, discuss, digest, the words, way and person of Jesus as found in the New Testament. If you do, you will learn that he invites you to apprentice yourself to him, to put into practice what you see him do and say. There are several opportunities to do that in the weekly schedule of our church, and if none suits your schedule then talk to your pastors and session and spawn a new one. I challenge you to post a sign in your heart which says, “This life under new management.” We don’t discover who Jesus is sitting on the sidelines as spectators, but by entering into the arena of life at his side.
Here is how Jesus invites his followers to follow him as rendered in The Message, a fresh translation by Eugene Peterson who died this past year, leaving the world a poorer place. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me— watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:26-30 The Message)
What child is this? The Word become flesh, the one who can show us how to live freely and lightly if we but keep company with him.
Dec. 29, 2019
Jay Bartow, Pastor Emeritus
First Presbyterian Church of Monterey
Text: John 1:1-18
We have been enjoying singing favorite carols this morning, which is a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas. By the way, Christmas is a feast of twelve Days in the Christian Calendar, not just a single day. That explains the song about the twelve days of Christmas. I have chosen a favorite scripture passage for reflection on this first Sunday in Christmas. The first chapter of John is a masterpiece that harkens back to the opening words of the Bible, “In the beginning,” and links them to the birth of Jesus Christ, the Word, who was with God and was God and through whom all things were made. The scope of those words is breathtaking. The passage goes on to say that the world by and large did not grasp what happened in the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. His reception in his hometown of Nazareth was tepid turning to hostile, leading Jesus to say that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown.
But what does it mean that the Word became flesh? In Greek thought, logos, which is translated word, had a long and rich history. By the time this Gospel was written, likely toward the close of the First Century, there were probably 100,000 Greeks in the church for every Jewish believer in Jesus as Messiah. That concept of Messiah, the anointed one who would reestablish the Davidic kingdom and rescue Israel from its pagan oppressors was unknown to Greeks and didn’t speak to them. So the author of this fourth Gospel found a word which belonged to both Jewish and Greek thought.
To the Jew a word was far more than mere sound; a word was something which had an active and independent existence, and which actually did things. God spoke the world into existence: “Let there be light, and there was light.” In Isaiah 55 we read, “So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is 55:11 RSV)
For Greeks logos meant not only word, but reason. The logos was nothing less that the mind of God, controlling this world and controlling every person within it. The writer of this Gospel said to the Greeks, “For centuries you have been thinking and writing and dreaming about the logos, the power which made the world, the power which keeps the order of the world, the power by which humans come into contact with God. Jesus is that logos come down to earth. The mind of God became a person.” (Wm Barclay The Gospel of John Vol 1 pp. 13- 14)
Do you catch the difference? Not an impersonal power, but a person incarnating the heart and mind of God. Think about that, ponder that: God in the flesh, God accommodating God’s self to us so that we can see what is on God’s mind and in God’s heart. “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate deity, Pleased in flesh with us to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.” Charles Wesley packed some solid theology into that carol, didn’t he? And in the next stanza he reminds us, “Light and life to all he brings,” which is exactly what John says, reminding us that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
But the sad fact is that not all embraced the light and life offered them. Light exposes darkness and not everyone appreciates having the darkness they harbor exposed to the light. The religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day certainly didn’t. They conspired to eliminate him, but the light continues to shine in the darkness, and you and are drawn here today by that light. The great good news is that when we receive Jesus Christ, when we believe in his name, which is to say his character and what he stood for, we become children of God.
It took me a while to learn about the word made flesh and the invitation to receive him, to invite him to rule in my mind and heart and direct my steps. But when I did, I found a dimension to life I had not imagined, a sense of being comfortable in my own skin, loved just as I was, entrusted with carrying on the good work Jesus began. What drew me to Christ and keeps drawing me is his amazing and boundless love. Listen to what Dr. Stephen Post, a distinguished professor at Case Western University, who has been exploring the transforming power of love, a subject largely unexplored by academia, says of Jesus:
Jesus the Christ, revealed the divine unlimited love (agape) that underlies all of the universe and is the basis of all that we call goodness, both ethically and spiritually. Every aspect of his life was a once-in-history revelation of a perfectly exceptionless, enduring, pure, wise, and energetic love. In his life Jesus demonstrated the many forms that agape must take in response to human needs. Among these were compassion, forgiveness, attentive listening, mirth, creativity (e.g. His amazing Parables), loyalty, celebration, immense courage, and healing. Not one human being was ever wronged in any way whatsoever by Jesus, and there was no accusation that could stand against him. Why? He was, and is, perfect self-giving love. His atoning death was for all time the most absolutely vivid expression of perfectly pure and perfectly effective love. This revelation of divine love cuts history life a knife through butter-there is everything before, there is everything after.
Isn’t that a powerful summary of the love of Christ? When I first read that in 2007 I said, “Amen”. I wished I had written that, but I am grateful that he did, because it gives expression to how I feel about Jesus.
I want to share one other quote which sets forth the love of Jesus, and it comes from a distinguished author and playwright, Dorothy Sayers, known most widely for her Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but who also wrote essays and theology. Listen to what she says about Jesus and women. This is from a series of essays published in 1947under the title Unpopular Opinions.
Perhaps it is no wonder that women were first at the cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The Women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female, who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows it pungency from female perversity; nobody could guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about women’s nature.
And what shall we say of Jesus’s love for children and his charge to us to become like them if we would experience the gracious reign of God. What other religious leader says anything about children, much less makes them exemplars of how to approach life?
I want to close by urging you in the year ahead to read, reflect, discuss, digest, the words, way and person of Jesus as found in the New Testament. If you do, you will learn that he invites you to apprentice yourself to him, to put into practice what you see him do and say. There are several opportunities to do that in the weekly schedule of our church, and if none suits your schedule then talk to your pastors and session and spawn a new one. I challenge you to post a sign in your heart which says, “This life under new management.” We don’t discover who Jesus is sitting on the sidelines as spectators, but by entering into the arena of life at his side.
Here is how Jesus invites his followers to follow him as rendered in The Message, a fresh translation by Eugene Peterson who died this past year, leaving the world a poorer place. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me— watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:26-30 The Message)
What child is this? The Word become flesh, the one who can show us how to live freely and lightly if we but keep company with him.
