Jazzmancf's Blog

March 15, 2026

John 9:1-41

            We have quite a cast of characters in today’s story, don’t we?  We have Jesus, the Healer.  We have the disciples whose only real contribution today is to ask a rather indelicate question.  We have the man born blind, who Jesus gave sight, in more ways than one.  We have the blind man’s neighbors who know him… but then don’t.  We have the blind man’s parents, who basically throw their son under the bus.  And we have the Pharisees who had sight… but spend the entire story today trying to prove that they didn’t.  As we think about today’s text, I’d like first to take a few moments to recap the story, but then I really want to take some time to think about what it means to be offered sight.  And specifically, I’d like for us to think about what it means for the blind man to be offered sight, what it means for the blind man’s parents to be offered sight, and what it means for the Pharisees to be offered sight.

            As our story begins, Jesus has just left the temple when He encounters a man who was born blind.  The disciples, apparently forgetting that the man was blind and not deaf, ask Jesus, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?  Was it him or was it his parents?”  It was, and I believe in many ways still is, common for individual suffering to be attributed to individual sin… we need look no further than the concept of karma to see this thought in action today.  But Jesus soundly rejects this idea.  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” 

            It seems that, for humans, the idea of the causes of individual suffering being self-inflicted is somehow less unsettling than the idea of individuals suffering without reason.  And so, here the disciples seek some comfort in finding somewhere to assign the blame for this man’s blindness.  But life doesn’t always work that way.  We know, as Christians, that God graciously and faithfully forgives sin.  But we also know that He does not tend to remove us from the consequences of our sin.  And so, there may be times when individual suffering is a direct result of individual sin, but the truly distressing thing about sin is the fact that sin has a ripple effect.  Like a stone dropped in water, the effects of sin emanate from the event and can adversely affect people who are in no way related to the sin that is now causing their suffering.  And so, what Jesus wants the disciples, and us, to understand here is that God is never… ever the source of sin or suffering, but that God can use even the most unfortunate of circumstances to make good things happen.  And we will shortly see that in the life of this man who was born blind.

            Next, Jesus takes a handful of dirt, mixes it with saliva and makes a small amount of mud that he puts on the blind man’s eyes, then, He commands the man to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam (Sy-lów-umm).  When the man does that, he is able to see.  He returns to the place where Jesus had healed him and Jesus is gone.  But his friends are still there, and I think it is safe to assume that they are perplexed, to say the least.  This person that they have known to be blind from birth can now see.  And incredibly, some of his friends claim that he is not who he is.  When our formerly blind friend assures them that he is indeed the same man that they know who had been born blind, they, of course, want to hear the story… what happened?  And so, for the first of multiple times in today’s story, the formerly blind man explains, factually, truthfully, and succinctly, exactly what happened.  “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So, I went and washed, and then I could see.”

            For reasons that the text doesn’t make entirely clear, his friends brought him to the Pharisees.  And here is where we find out that this healing happened on the Sabbath.  And so, according to the Pharisees, this healing was illegal.  Now, this isn’t the first time that Jesus has chosen to do something on the Sabbath that He knew the Pharisees weren’t going to like.  You see, the Pharisees had this thing called the Mitzvot.  And the Mitzvot was the result of literally hundreds of years of rabbinic thought.  It was a list of 613 rules and regulations that were rabbinic interpretations of how God’s law should be applied in everyday situations and for the Pharisees, these interpretations, though not from the Bible, carried the weight of the Law itself.  And Jesus had not only healed on the Sabbath, but He had broken the Mitzvah that prohibits work when He made the mud out of dirt and saliva.  The Pharisees asked the formally blind man to explain what happened and he told them exactly what he had told his friends, Jesus, mud, wash, see.

            And this event actually caused a bit of a disagreement among the Pharisees.  Because some claimed that Jesus could not possibly be from God because He broke the Law in violating the Sabbath, while others asked how a sinner could possibly perform such signs. And so, the Pharisees turned to the formally blind man to ask his opinion, and he responded that Jesus is a prophet.  Now, some of the Pharisees thought that this was all a trick, that this wasn’t the man who was originally born blind, but was an imposter, and so, they summoned his parents.

            And here is where I need to step away from today’s story for a minute so that we can understand something.  In Jesus day, the temple wasn’t just about religion.  It was government, it was school, it was the source of social relationships, it was everything.  And to be put out of the temple was more than just to be excluded from your faith community.  It was to be ostracized.  Being thrown out of the temple would likely cost you your job, your friends, possibly even your family.  For a first century Jew to be cast out of the temple would be catastrophic.  And the Pharisees had decided some time previously, that anyone who was a follower of Jesus would be cast out of the temple.  And so, returning to our story, the formerly blind man’s parents must have been terrified to have to stand before the Pharisees.  The parents confirmed that this was their son.  They confirmed that their son had indeed been blind since birth and then here comes the part where they threw their son under the bus.  When asked how it is that he can now see, they replied, “He is of age; ask him.”  The parents apparently wanted no part of an argument with the Pharisees.  The last thing that they needed would have been to be cast out of the temple.

            And at this point, let’s not judge the Pharisees too harshly.  And don’t worry, I’ll judge them harshly later.  In a world that was predominately polytheistic, the Jews were uncompromising defenders of their faith.  Through the years the Jews had encountered a multiple of men who had claimed to be the Messiah and, of course, were not.  And so, the Jews were quite experienced in tenaciously opposing wannabe Messiahs.  But this time was different, this time there were signs and wonders that confirmed the Messiahship of Jesus to anyone who had eyes to see.  But as we all know, it ended up that the Pharisee’s zeal to defend their faith caused them not to see.  Even though it was their own God standing right before them.

            And so, now a SECOND time the Jews summoned our formerly blind friend.  “Give glory to God” the Pharisees said.  This was the equivalent of someone today asking, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” (I learned that from TV.)  And then, the Pharisees asked our formerly blind friend all of the same questions all over again, only now, the witness was under oath.  But this time the Pharisees indulged in a little bit of what lawyers today would call “Leading the witness”. The Pharisees, referring to Jesus, say, “We know this man is a sinner”.  Our formerly blind friend responds to this by saying, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”.  When the Pharisees demand that he tell them AGAIN how this all happened, he once again repeated his story, but then he provided a surprisingly snarky question of his own.  “Do you want to become his disciples too?” he asked.  Incensed, the Pharisees expelled him from the temple.

            When Jesus heard that the formerly blind man had been expelled from the temple, Jesus found him and asked him if he believed in the Son of Man.  “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”  Jesus identified Himself to the man, and the man said “Lord, I believe”, and then he worshipped Jesus.

            As we follow our formerly blind friend’s story today, we see a progression.  We see a man who doesn’t know Jesus, who is afflicted with physical blindness, but the fact that he doesn’t know Jesus makes his blindness spiritual as well.  Jesus heals the physical blindness but as our story unfolds, his spiritual blindness is gradually brought into the light as well.  From not knowing Jesus we find that his healing and his subsequent questioning by the Pharisees bring him to the realization that Jesus is a prophet.  From realizing that Jesus is a prophet we find him to be defending Jesus against the Pharisees’ mistaken claims.  Then, when Jesus comes to him again, we find the man calling Him “Lord” and worshipping Him.  You see, Jesus hadn’t just given the man his physical sight, He had given Him spiritual sight as well.  Our formerly blind friend had found an eternal saving faith as Jesus worked through the difficulties that our formerly blind friend had faced in his lifetime and turned those ashes of his life into beauty.

            Our formerly blind friend’s parents had the same opportunity so see the work of Jesus for what it was… but were unable to see because of fear.  Fear of the Pharisees.  Fear of the disruption in their lives that would have occurred had they been banned from the temple.  Fear of the rejection that they would face from their friends and neighbors if they ran afoul of the Pharisees.  The parents were given the same offer of sight that was given to their son.  But, though physically seeing, they remained in spiritual darkness; passing on the opportunity to become a beloved part of God’s family because they were afraid of what others may think.

            The Pharisees?  Well, they were offered the same opportunity for sight too, weren’t they?  In fact, the Pharisees had been investigating Jesus for quite some time, and so this miracle wasn’t a first for them.  They had heard of quite a few and clearly, some had witnessed Jesus’

 miracles firsthand.  Because the Bible tells us that Pharisees were present at some of Jesus’ miracles.  And so, the Pharisees had to ignore the evidence that was literally right in front of them.  And I think that this can only lead us to one of two conclusions.  Either they were so entrenched in their theological beliefs that they left no room to see the incredible wonder of God; the magnificence of what God was doing in their lives, out of His great love for them, and doing these things entirely for their benefit.  Or they were so protective of their privilege and their authority that they couldn’t stand the thought of someone taking any of that away from them.

            Regardless of why, what remains is… in my mind… sadness.  Sadness that people actually allowed the stuff of this life to stand in the way of an eternal relationship with the God, who knows them, loves them in ways beyond their capacity to understand, and relentlessly seeks to draw them into relationship with Him.

            My dear friends… in a world filled with distractions and anxiety. in a world that chooses to make faith uncomfortable or uncool, in a world that is filled with misunderstanding and misinformation, let us keep our vision clear.  Let us continue, day by day, to see the beauty and the majesty of what God is doing in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters the whole world over.  And let us all call on the Name of the Lord and say “Lord, I believe”.

dMarch 8, 2026

John 4:5-42

            Those darn Samaritans!  They just refuse to understand the fact that they aren’t as good as they think they are.  I mean… they CLAIM to be Jewish, but that’s laughable.  They have been intermarrying with those Goyim that the Assyrians moved into their land 700 YEARS AGO. 700 years of intermarrying with heathen Gentiles.  None of the Samaritans can identify what tribe they are from.  Where do you think the name “the ten lost tribes of Israel” came from?  Those records have been lost for centuries and now, there isn’t a one of them that can prove for sure that they even HAVE any Jewish blood. 

And what’s more, they CLAIM to worship God, but they accept only the Torah… the first five books of the Bible, as authoritative.  They don’t accept the Nevi’im, the writings of the prophets or the Kethuvim, the Psalms and the wisdom literature at all.  They don’t accept the Mitzvot, the body of oral law, and so, of course, they don’t FOLLOW the oral law.  Which means that they are UNCLEAN!  For a Jew to associate with them in any way, to eat from one of their plates or drink from one of their cups would render that Jew unclean.  And the Samaritans… well, they even built their own temple!  Can you believe it?  God commanded that we worship Him on Mount Zion, but they went and built a temple on Mount Gerizim to worship there!  Their worship isn’t even recognizable as worship of the one true God.  It’s idolatry, I tell you. 

            It’s no wonder that our Rabbis speak out against those Samaritans.  Did you know that there is a rabbinic saying that says, “A piece of bread given by a Samaritan is more unclean than swine’s flesh”.  In fact, there is a whole section of the Talmud called the Tractate Kutim that lists all of the restrictions in our dealings with THOSE people.

            Unfortunately, racial prejudice is nothing new.  These 2,000 year old attitudes sound eerily familiar to the kind of things that we might have heard during the civil rights era or even today among those in the world who reject the idea of welcoming the refugee or the sojourner.  In Jesus’ day, the Samaritans and the Jews despised each other.  We need no more proof of that than the fact that the standard route a Jew would take when traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would bypass Samaria entirely, traveling through Perea and crossing the Jordan River near Jericho.  This was a five-to-seven-day journey.  A direct route through Samaria would only have taken three days, but those extra few days traveling were worth it because the Samaritans were well known for mistreating traveling Jews and sometimes killing them.

            But in today’s story Jesus and His disciples are traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem and Jesus has chosen to take them all straight through Samaria.  It’s just about noon and Jesus sends the disciples into a nearby town to buy something for them all to eat, and Jesus continues on a short way until He gets to a well, where He sits down to rest.  Shortly thereafter, a Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw some water, and Jesus asks her for a drink.  Now, we’ve already talked about the animosity that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans and so, the woman is taken aback, not only that a Jew would be asking a Samaritan for a drink.  Remember, for a Jew to drink from a Samaritan’s cup would render them unclean.  But also, because it was a giant breech of protocol for a man to speak to a woman, any woman, in pubic.  Believe it or not, a Jewish man was not even permitted to speak to his own wife in public.  And so, here, in what seems to us to be a pretty innocuous request, Jesus has crossed two pretty significant boundaries. 

            And so, the Samaritan woman called Him on it. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman” she said, “how can you ask me for a drink?”  But just like Jesus did with Nicodemus last week, He skips by her question and gets straight to the point.   “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”  Jesus said.  And just like Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman takes Jesus literally.  “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep” she said, “where can you get this living water?  And Jesus, still speaking allegorically, replies, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  Our Samaritan friend, apparently likes the idea of not having to trudge back and forth to the well every day, and so, she asks Jesus if He can give her some of this ‘living water’”. 

            Jesus then suggested that she go back to the town and get her husband.  This isn’t as strange a request as it may seem.  Jesus has already breached protocol by talking to this woman in public and asking her to bring her husband before continuing their discussion would render this whole conversation a bit more appropriate.  But we soon find out that this ISN’T why Jesus was asking this, because, as the woman replies that she has no husband, Jesus takes advantage of this opportunity to reveal the fact that He  KNOWS her… that He knows that she has been married five times and that she is now not married to the man that she is with.

            And now, I need to interrupt the story for a minute because there is a LOT happening here that we need to talk about.  I have a card that I have been carrying around in my wallet since about 1981.  Some of you have seen it.  The card gives a dictionary definition of the word “Coincidence”, and the definition that it gives for that word is “When God works a miracle and remains anonymous.”  That’s what a coincidence is. 

            And so, first of all, yes, it was the women who came to the well every day to fill their jars and to carry those heavy jars of water back to their homes.  And women would do this early in the morning or early in the evening in order to avoid the noonday heat.  And yet here, our Samaritan friend is coming to the well at noon.  And before we judge this woman too harshly, let’s remember that women did not have the privilege of initiating a divorce, that was exclusively a husband’s prerogative.  But still, the fact that she was coming here in the heat of the afternoon is a pretty clear indication that she was avoiding the other women from the town.  She was avoiding the hurtful comments, the judgmental glances, the disdain with which the others treated her… it was just easier for her to come when no one else was here.  And so, the first question I have to ask is, does anyone think that it is a random coincidence that Jesus met this particular woman at this particular time in this particular place?  Or do we think it is more likely that Jesus planned to meet her, possibly that the entire reason that Jesus chose the perilous route through Samaria was so that He could be at that well, at that time, specifically to meet her? 

Second, what do we think that Jesus’ approaching this Samaritan woman and speaking with her teaches us about what Jesus believed about racial equality?  Jesus didn’t care that she was a despised Samaritan.  She certainly wasn’t despised by Jesus.  And Jesus wouldn’t have hesitated to drink from one of her cups.  And what do we think that Jesus’ actions teach us about what Jesus believed about gender equality?  Jesus did not hesitate to speak to this woman.  In spite of the misogynistic rules of His time and place, Jesus spoke to her directly and lovingly.  In short, there were no boundaries that were going to keep Jesus from touching the life of this Samaritan woman and bringing her to a saving faith in Him.  James Laurence says, “if there is one thing we know about Jesus, it is that he reaches out to people just like this woman.” [1]  When God knows our hearts, and when He knows that we are open to His calling, there is NOTHING that will keep Him from adopting us as His own… NOTHING.

            And so, our story continues.  We don’t know if our Samaritan friend was trying to change the subject because she was uncomfortable with the way that Jesus revealed the depths of her personal life, or if perhaps she recognized that the only way that Jesus could have known these things about her was through divine intervention of some sort, and so, she said, “I can see that you are a prophet.”  Then she launched into a discussion, basically complaining about the ways that the Jews discredit the worship of the Samaritans, which truthfully, they did.  The Jews claimed that Mount Gerizim was not an appropriate site for worship and so, essentially, that the Samaritan’s prayers were not heard by God.

            Jesus begins His response in a way that may at first have sounded like He was agreeing that the Samaritans were worshipping in the wrong place, but it quickly becomes apparent that Jesus was actually talking about something completely different.  “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews” Jesus said.  But this statement was not about invalidating Samaritan worship.  This statement was about leading the Samaritans to understand the fact that the God of Israel can only be understood in the light of the way that God has chosen to reveal Himself through the nation of Israel… That if we want to know God, we discover Him through the Hebrew scriptures and through the witness of His Son, Jesus, to whom the entire Hebrew Bible points.

            Jesus then tells her that, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”  It is no longer about where you worship, it is about worship pouring out from the heart that has been touched by God’s Spirit.  A heart from which springs forth the living water about which Jesus had just spoken.  Our Samaritan friend, very possibly led by the Spirit at this point, states that she knows that when the Jewish Messiah comes that He will explain everything.  And for the first time in His ministry, Jesus says plainly, “I am He”.  But when Jesus says this, He uses the Greek phrase Ἐγώ εἰμι {Ego eye-my) which is the exact “I AM” that was spoken by God when He identified Himself to Moses.  Jesus leaves no room for doubt in His statement about the fact that He is indeed the Messiah.

            As the disciples arrive with the food (and that is a story for another day), our Samaritan friend, who came to the well to draw water to bring home, leaves without her water because something else has become the matter of primary importance.  And as this “Living water” with which Jesus has gifted her wells up from her heart, she runs back to the town “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” The woman told the townspeople.  “Could this be the Messiah?”   And the people of her town, those whom she had sought to avoid by coming to the well in the heat of the day, now heard her knocking on their doors, bringing the Good News of the Gospel… and bringing it with Joy.

            Now, let me briefly step away from our story one more time so we can notice something important.  Jesus never said one word about this woman’s sin.  He didn’t condemn her, he didn’t reprimand her, He simply, lovingly, guided her to an understanding of who He is.  Jesus’ goal wasn’t retribution, His goal was reconciliation.  This is why John tells us that “He came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

            If a woman, five times married and now living unmarried with a partner, if a woman ostracized by her community, if a woman with no training in the Law or the Prophets, if a woman of possibly dubious moral character, can boldly and joyfully carry the Good News of the Gospel to the very town of people who had shunned her.  What excuse do WE have not to be joyful bearers of the Good News of the Gospel also?  Because of our Samaritan friend’s witness Jesus was invited to stay in that town for a few days and to teach the townspeople of God’s love and acceptance… even acceptance of those darn Samaritans.  Our text tells us that because of Jesus’ teaching over those few days, many of the Samaritans became believers.

            So, no, I don’t believe in coincidences, at least not random ones.  Before He even met our Samaritan friend, Jesus knew her heart.  And He knew that touching her life with the power of God’s love was going to make a difference, not only in her life, but in the lives of the many townsfolk among whom she lived who would hear her and believe the Gospel also.

            My dear friends, we do not serve a God of retribution.  We serve a God of reconciliation.  A God who lovingly and graciously forgives our imperfections and calls us to His side that we may become members of His family, redeemed, forgiven, and loved.

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[1] James Laurence, MyPastoralPonderings.com, Springs of Living Mercy

February 8, 2026

Matthew 5:13-20

            You really can’t preach a sermon on Matthew 5:13 these days without explaining how important salt was in the first century.  Salt was used for seasoning, yes, but it was also used as a preservative.  In the days before refrigerators, unless you were wealthy and could import ice, and yes they did do that, salt was the only way to keep food from spoiling.  But salt is useful for much more than that.  Salt also tenderizes and cleanses.  It is used in medicine and is used in pottery.  It was used for fertilizing and for bleaching.  And anyone who survived the ice storm of a couple of weeks ago knows that salt is pretty good at clearing sidewalks too.  So important was salt in the ancient world that it was used as a form of currency; people were literally paid with salt.  Have you ever heard the saying that someone “wasn’t worth their salt?”  That’s where that saying came from.  Nowadays you can buy a container of salt at the grocery store for about a buck and a half, but in the ancient world salt was quite literally worth its weight in gold.  Seriously, a pound of salt for a pound of gold.

            And so, Jesus begins today’s reading telling his followers that they are the salt of the earth.  And as the salt of the earth, we have great value, and we also are more than just seasoning.  It’s not just that we make the world a little more interesting, or a little nicer, or a little more honorable.  As salt to the world, we are also healing and preserving.  We are fertilizing and cleansing and clearing the way for others.  Last week Matthew talked about character; about how God blesses those who love and care for and look after one another.  But today, Matthew talks about taking those aspects of our personality that we talked about last week; about being humble before God, mourning over sin, adopting God’s priorities, thirsting after justice, striving for Christ-likeness, and working to bring reconciliation, and making all of these things an active, functioning part of our day to day lives.

            And next, Jesus says something really interesting: “But if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again:” And the first question that comes to my mind is, “Salt is a mineral, how in the world can it become less salty?”  Well, here is where we find that there are actually two different ways that salt can be made less salty.  The first way is obvious if you think about it.  People really haven’t changed much in the last 2000 years, and if salt was as valuable as gold, you can bet every penny in your wallet that there were going to be some ancient merchants were going to find a way to surreptitiously boost their profits, and they did.  These unethical merchants would mix salt with impurities, like chalk, or sand, or crushed limestone, things that looked like salt but weren’t.  And by adding these impurities they allowed themselves to make more money by selling an adulterated product.  But there is a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson is that WE can’t allow impurities to dilute our message.  Helping others to understand that our faith is all about loving others as Jesus loved us must not be tempered by messages that distract from that ultimate goal.  We aren’t called to judge or to condemn or to enforce morality, we are called to love, and that must be the pure, uncorrupted, essence of our message.

            The second thing is even more interesting, and possibly even a bit perplexing.  When Matthew reports Jesus as having said, “Losing its saltiness” the word used in the Greek is μωραίνω (Mo-ríne-ooh) and this is actually the word from which we derive our English word “moron”.  And so, what this verse is actually saying is, if salt is made foolish, how can it be restored?  And thinking first about the merchants who were doctoring their salt, I would agree that it would be pretty foolish to add so many impurities that it no longer tasted like salt or functioned as salt, but I think there is more to our story than this. 

Scott Hoezee says, “To – have a shaker of salt sitting next to the stove but never to put any into the pot, is foolish.  What’s the sense of having it there if you’re not going to [use it]?  You may as well toss it out the window for all the good such unused salt will do for your dinner!  Salt has a definite purpose and if you won’t use it for that purpose, then the salt becomes foolish to have around.”  [1]  And in the same way, it would be foolish for believers not to share the saltiness of their faith.

            Jesus’ message here is clear.  The believer is not to separate oneself from the world, the believer is to infuse the world with love and compassion and grace.  We, as believers, are actually called to season the world with the salt of the Gospel.

            Next, as Jesus so often does, He repeats his thought from a slightly different perspective.  “You are the light of the world” Jesus says.  And as salt makes better the things that it seasons, light makes the world better as it drives out the darkness.  And so, not only are we to be salt, making the world better with the wonderful seasoning of the Gospel, we are also to be light, driving out this world’s darkness and replacing that darkness with the light of God’s love and grace.  Osborne says, “The kingdom people must make a difference in this world.  Since believers are salt and light, they must be visible and change the nature of the world around them.” [2]

            Now next, Jesus says that “A city on a hill cannot be hidden”.  I have driven back and forth to Ohio multiple times and there is a place on the Pennsylvania Turnpike where the view is absolutely stunning.  As you are driving through the mountains you come around a curve and from your vantage point high up on the side of that mountain you see an enormous valley down below.  And in the middle of that valley a small city sits on top of a hill.  I have enjoyed this view many times and I have never lost the sense of wonder that I feel when I see it.  And that little city on the hill can probably be seen from about 20 miles in any direction.  It’s stunningly beautiful and it’s also impossible to miss. 

            And to the world, our faith should be just like that… stunningly beautiful and impossible to miss.  A life that is loving and gracious and compassionate will be noticed.  And the believer that exhibits these qualities can be a living example of the Gospel without ever once saying a word.  St. Francis of Assisi is reputed to have said “Share the Gospel… use words if necessary”.  While there is no proof that he actually said that, the thought is right on the money.  When we love as Jesus loved, the world WILL notice.  And our loving witness has the capacity to change lives, the capacity to introduce others to Jesus, the capacity to have an eternal impact on those who we meet.  And so… the last thing that we want to do is to be hiding that light!  “No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bowl”, Jesus said.  That would be the equivalent of making salt foolish, wouldn’t it?  And so, the Gospel is absolutely made to be shared.  But more than that, it’s also made to be lived.  And it’s made to make a difference.

            So, how do we accomplish that?  Verse 16: “In this way, let your light shine before others so that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven.”  And I can’t point out strongly enough here that those good works are not the source of our salvation.  God alone saves us and sustains us.  But the new heart that is formed within us as we draw closer to God becomes a source of love and grace and compassion towards others.  And it is this transformation of the heart that is the subject of the last part of our reading today.

The Jewish leaders emphasized obedience to the Law, and so zealous were our Jewish brothers and sisters to follow that law that the leaders devised literally thousands of pages of interpretations of the law in an attempt to guide the people through any possible eventuality.  The Mishnah was a collection of 613 Mitzvoth or interpretations that every good Jew was required to follow… well… religiously.  The Talmud was an even larger collection of interpretations.  During Jesus’ time these rules of the Talmud, what we usually refer to as the “oral law”, were memorized by the priests and scribes.  But when the Talmud was eventually written down it was more like an encyclopedia than a book, encompassing multiple volumes.  The Babylonian Talmud had 2,711 double sided folios which would amount to about 5,000 pages in a modern book.  And all of this was written in the interest of avoiding ambiguity, in the interest of trying to provide guidance for every possible circumstance.

But in the process of doing this the priests and scribes inadvertently ended up teaching a faith that was based on behavior.  Your faith became a matter of what you did and how you behaved in certain circumstances.  And everything mattered.  What you ate and drank, how you washed your hands, what you could wear, how you could travel, who you could associate with, do business with, or be friends with, how you worshipped, how you did business… the rules about all of these things had to be observed meticulously or you would be rendered “unclean”.  And uncleanness meant that you were excluded from the community, from your family, and from worship, and therefore, excluded from God’s presence.

But excluding His children from His presence is the last thing that God wants to do.  And so, in today’s lesson Jesus said, in essence, “nope, that is not what it’s all about.”  Jesus spends the entire Sermon on the Mount teaching us how God is interested not in how we behave but in who we are.  It’s not that behavior doesn’t matter, it does, enormously, but our behaviors need to be coming from the right place.  And that right place is a heart that loves God and loves others.

At this point in Jesus’ ministry, it looked to many of the first century Jews like Jesus was abrogating the Laws of the Hebrew Bible, but Jesus made it abundantly clear that He was doing nothing of the sort.  Verse 18, “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”  Where the Mishnah and the Talmud failed to interpret the Law properly, Jesus’ status as the Living Word of God means that His every interpretation, along with His every teaching and His every action illuminates the Old Testament Law perfectly.  This is why you will often hear me say that every verse in the Bible must be understood in the light of the life, the teaching, and the example of Jesus.  If something in the Bible appears to us not to be consistent with those three things, it’s not the Bible that is wrong, it is our understanding of what it is that the Bible is trying to teach us.

Jesus invites us to follow Him.  And He asks us to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us and to transform us into people who love as Jesus loved.  And once He has begun to accomplish that in our lives, then He calls us to love others so that they may see His love exhibited in our lives and in our actions.  My dear friends, please don’t lose your saltiness.  Please don’t hide your light.  Rather, let us all be that beautiful city on a hill that shows the world what the love of God is all about.

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[1] Scott Hoezee, CEPreaching.org, Matthew 5:13-20 Commentary

[2] Grant R. Osborne, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Matthew, Pg. 52

February 1, 2026

Matthew 5:1-12

            If we are to really understand today’s reading we will first need to know what Jesus meant when He said the word “Blessed”.  And it’s not that we don’t know what “blessed” means in modern English, but the word had a somewhat different application in the ancient Greco-Roman world and because this word dominates our reading today, I think it is a good idea for us to see how this word was used in the original message to its first century audience. 

In the Greek, the word is μακάριος (mah-kár-ee-oos) and according to Warren Wiersbe, μακάριος was not a word that was applied to humans, because it described a kind of joy that was only enjoyed by the gods.  In the English we usually translate this word “Blessed” but you will sometimes see it translated as “Happy” or “Fortunate”.  But none of these words really capture the original meaning and intent of μακάριος.  Paraphrasing Help’s Word Studies, μακάριος describes a believer in an enviable or fortunate, position because this person is a recipient of God’s favor.  A favor that extends or increases the gifts to that believer of God’s grace or God’s benefits.  In other words, the blessedness of the believer is not due to anything that the believer does but is entirely a function of what God does for the believer.

            And so, what Jesus is saying here isn’t that a person will be lucky or happy if they are poor, or if they are in mourning, or if they are hungry.  None of those things really make any sense anyway, do they?  No!  But in these words, Jesus is actually beginning to describe a way of living that is completely different from that to which we are accustomed.  In fact, the entire Sermon on the Mount is a description of this different way of living.  A way of living that is contrary to the ways of this world, and a way of living in which the foundation for every action of the believer… is love. 

Brian Sauvé expands on this idea when he says, “God would have you live an abundant, blessed, glorious life—a life wherein you would be what it is that you were made to be, namely, human. Which is to say, a living, technicolor image bearer of God himself, a partaker of the divine nature, an imitator of God, a beloved [child].”  [1]

            So, let’s take a look at what Jesus is saying today.  In the first four blessings of which Jesus speaks, He is describing the character of the believer.  To be “poor in spirit” describes our attitude towards ourselves.  If a believer has a proper understanding of who they are before God, and because of that understanding they walk with humility, then they are “poor in spirit”.  Warren Wiersbe says, “To be poor in spirit means to have a correct estimate of oneself.  Poor in spirit is the opposite of the world’s attitudes of self-praise and self-assertion.  It is not false humility, it is honesty with ourselves; we know ourselves, accept ourselves, and try to be ourselves to the glory of God.”  [2]  So, what Jesus is saying is, God’s children are embraced by God when they approach Him with humility and reverence.

            To be in mourning describes our attitude towards sin.  Akin says “Mourning, in this context, is an act of repentance and sorrow over our sin and [our] sinful condition.  We see God for who He is.  We see ourselves for who we are [and] we are heartbroken.”  [3]  We mourn because we understand the fact that our lives fall short of our call to Christ-likeness and yet God, in Christ, forgives our failures and calls us His own.  So, what Jesus is saying is, God’s children are comforted by God when they grieve over their own sinfulness.

            To be meek is to set aside one’s own priorities in favor of following Jesus’ priorities.  In modern times we tend to associate meekness with weakness or timidity, but in the Greek the word is πραεῖς (pra-ous) and this is a word that the Greeks used to describe a horse that had been trained.  πραεῖς isn’t weakness, it is power under the control of a master.  When we choose to allow God to control our priorities then, and only then, are we able to love God and to love others as God has called us to do.  So, what Jesus is saying is, God’s children are adopted by God when they submit their lives to Jesus and begin to live according to His loving example.

            I doubt that I need to explain what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I would point out the fact that those who live in the desert probably have a much greater understanding of thirst than we do.  In the arid desert, water is life and the need to find water in the desert to drink is deeply compelling.  Our text is telling us that we must have within us a deeply compelling desire to see justice and righteousness prevail.  We must not acquiesce to the world’s unrighteous and unloving ways of doing things.  Understanding the fact that justice is nothing more than love put into action, we must live lovingly in order that justice and righteousness may be accomplished through our actions.  So, what Jesus is saying is, God brings fullness and satisfaction those who align themselves with Him in the desire to see justice and righteousness abound.

In the next three blessings Jesus speaks to the believer’s relationships with others.  To be merciful means to understand that sometimes love requires forgiveness.  Akin says, “Mercy is a grace that flows directly out of the previous four beatitudes.  The person who knows [their] spiritual bankruptcy, grieves over [their] pitiable condition, submits [their] will to God’s will in all things, and longs for Godly righteousness shows mercy to the poor and needy because [they] know [themselves] to be poor and needy.” [4]  The simple truth is: a failure to show mercy is a failure to love.  So, what Jesus is saying is, God will show abundant mercy to those who show mercy to others.

To be pure in heart means to be passionately engrossed in our quest to become Christ-like.  Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”  To have a pure heart is something that we will never accomplish on our own, but the Good News is that God is faithful to purify the hearts of those who draw near to Him and seek to do His will.  So, what Jesus is saying is, God holds close those who actively seek His goodness.

The peacemakers are those who not only seek resolutions to strife and divisions among people, but also those who are involved in the process of reconciling people to God.  Among God’s peacemakers, evangelism is a high priority because ultimately there is no peace without the Prince of Peace.  God is deeply concerned over the relationships that His children have with one other and God is grieved when His children fight or hurt one another, or when they disadvantage one another.  And so, we are called always to be reconciling and always to be agents of God’s peace.  So, what Jesus is saying is, those who join with God to bring reconciliation and peace become a treasured part of God’s family.

Perhaps the hardest thing to accept in all of today’s reading is the command to rejoice when we are insulted or persecuted.  And yet, insults and persecutions are almost unavoidable because the person who chooses to follow Jesus does so by turning away from the ways of this world.  To a world that chooses expedience, a world that cuts corners or cheats in order to enrich themselves, righteousness is a threat.  The world does not want to be reminded that their actions are unrighteous and so the world will respond to righteousness with threats and intimidation and sometimes violence. 

And even beyond that, living simply and faithfully is a rebuke to the excesses of a consumer culture.  Walking humbly with your God is a rebuke to the world’s self-aggrandizement and pride.  Living lives of compassion and empathy will rebuke the world’s cynical way of using people for personal gain.  And if you are vocal in your pursuit of justice you will rebuke all of the ways in which the world exploits and marginalizes people and all of God’s creation.  So, what Jesus is saying is, when you share in the persecution that the prophets and that Jesus experienced, you CAN rejoice because you know that you are being welcomed into God’s Kingdom.

The Sermon on the Mount is most emphatically not a call for people just to be  better behaved.  The Sermon on the Mount is a call for believers to become something completely different.  A call to allow the Spirit of God to lead us to live lives that resemble the life of Christ.  Jo Anne Taylor tells us that, “Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is teaching us the way of discipleship. This is more than stewardship of our resources. It is a commitment to become as much like Jesus as possible, and to let that transformation show through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. . [5]

To a first century society steeped in the ideas of cleanness and uncleanness, to a first century society who guarded behavior as if good behavior was all that God was asking for, to a first century society that hadn’t yet figured out that to have love in your heart would produce all manner of goodness and righteousness, Jesus’ words were revolutionary.  And in fact, His words are still revolutionary today.  The hungry?  Feed them!  The naked?  Clothe them!  The refugee?  Accept them as one of your own!  The sick?  Heal them!  The imprisoned?  Free them!  The marginalized?  Speak for them and defend them!  And every one of these actions is driven by love!  When we love as Christ loves us, to see another person, ANY other person hungry or naked or sick or unwelcome will be every bit as unacceptable to us as if it was we who were hungry or naked or sick or unwelcome.  That’s what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

When we are followers of Jesus, when we seek to allow the Spirit to transform our hearts into hearts that look like God’s heart, then love will be at the very foundation of everything that we do.  Our quest is NOT a quest for goodness or righteousness.  Our quest is a quest for Christ-likeness.  Our quest is a quest to BECOME a person who is driven by love for God and love for others.  And while we know that this journey will not be complete until the day that our faith becomes sight.  Just look at how incredibly beautiful that journey will become when our lives are illuminated by… and reflect the love, and the light that is in Jesus. 

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[1] Brian Sauvé, RefugeUtah.org, A Kingdom of Blessedness

[2] Warren Wiersbe, Be Loyal, Pg. 46

[3] Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Christ in The Sermon on the Mount, Pgs. 7 & 8

[4] Daniel L. Akin, Exalting Jesus in The Sermon on the Mount, Pg. 10

[5] Jo Anne Taylor, PastorSings.com, How Blessed Are You

January 18, 2026

John 1:29-46

            When we get right down to the essence of today’s Gospel reading, what we find is John the Baptist doing some evangelizing.  I know, it doesn’t really look like that’s what he is doing, but it is  John isn’t handing out tracts or asking people to pray Jesus into their hearts…  He doesn’t have a slick evangelism campaign or a fancy sanctuary with big video displays and rocking music.  But let’s look again.  What does he do?  He said to the gathered crowd, “Look!  The lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”  It wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t overbearing, it wasn’t eloquent, he was simply introducing people to Jesus.  And then after he did that, he gave a very simple testimony.  He told the people that he had personally witnessed the dove that came down from heaven when Jesus was baptized, and that he had been told that when he saw that dove, the person on whom that dove rested would be the Messiah. 

            So, please be kind enough to allow me to recap.  John introduced Jesus to the people around him and then explained to them why meeting Jesus matters.  And in John’s simple, direct, no-nonsense, approach, we find a blueprint for how we can be sharers of the Gospel also.  Introduce people to Jesus.  And then tell them why it matters.  But the story continues…  Our text tells us that on the next day when John saw Jesus again, John once again declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God.  It’s not just that John was introducing people to Jesus, John was consistently introducing people to Jesus.

            And after John introduced Jesus to two of his own disciples, something really interesting happened.  These two disciples left John and began to follow Jesus.  Jesus turned around, saw them following Him, and asked them what did they want.  They replied, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  And this may seem like an odd response to Jesus’ question.  But Chelsey Harmon gives us a little bit of first century background on this answer when she says, “When you become someone’s disciple, you live your life with them. You stay where they stay. You do what they do. You follow them where they go. You learn to be like them. ‘Where are you staying?’ becomes a question about asking to become a disciple.”  [1]  Jesus responds to John’s disciples by saying “Come and see”.  And for anyone who has been introduced to Jesus and told why that introduction matters, Jesus’ response is a response to all of us.  “Come and see”. 

            And so, these two disciples of John’s did follow Jesus to “come and see” and they spent the afternoon with him.  Our story doesn’t tell us what Jesus said or did during that afternoon, but what those two saw and heard was enough to convince them to become His disciples.  One of the two disciples, who we find out is Andrew, goes to his brother Simon and tells him that “we have found the messiah”.  And then Andrew takes Simon with him to “come and see” for himself.

            It’s interesting that the other disciple of John goes unnamed, but many theologians suggest that the other disciple is none other than the apostle John, the author of this Gospel.  Everyone who has read John’s Gospel knows that the author remains anonymous throughout the Gospel, referring to himself only as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.  With this in mind it’s not hard to understand why there are those who presume the apostle John to be the unnamed disciple.

            I read a few verses past the lectionary selection today because these next few verses are actually part of the same story.  The next day Jesus decides to leave Bethany beyond the Jordan and head to Galilee.  On the way He sees Philip, and Jesus asks Philip to follow Him.  Philip follows Jesus also, but not before he finds Nathaniel and tells him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  When Nathaniel answers Philip with his famous (or is it infamous) response “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Philip responds to Nathaniel, saying, “come and see”.  It is perhaps helpful for us to know that Nazareth was the quintessential backwater town.  Archaeologists estimate the population of Nazareth to have been between 200 and 400 people, so, to the more sophisticated city dwellers Nazareth was considered to be a backward and insignificant town with inhabitants who were viewed as being unrefined and uneducated.

            Throughout our reading today we have this recurring theme of believers asking others to “come and see”.  This simple introduction makes no attempt to convince anyone of anything, it makes no attempt to offer an intellectual premise or a religious apologetic, makes no attempt to appeal to emotion or belief, it simply invites others to see for themselves and to draw their own conclusions. 

            And so, when we stop to think about this, if we were to choose to share our faith, (which we are called to do!) what skills would we need in order to be able to do this?  Well, according to today’s story, all we need is our own experience of Jesus.  We don’t need a degree in theology or philosophy, we don’t need extensive Bible training, we don’t need to memorize multiple verses of scripture, all we really need to do is to ask others to “come and see”, and perhaps to tell them why Jesus matters from our own perspective. 

            Klink says, “The mission of the church can be simply stated in Jesus’ first statement to His interested followers; “come and see”.  God has returned to broken humanity in the person of Jesus, all life hangs in the balance, and we are blind to the state of disrepair.  The only thing we can do is come and see Jesus”.  [2]

            Many of you have heard me talk about my friend Roy Williams.  Roy was a gentleman with whom I worked almost 50 years ago, and he is one of the best friends that I ever had.  We worked together, we traveled together on several occasions, we visited each other’s homes, we attended sporting events together, and I was one of the groomsmen at Roy’s wedding.  Roy is also the man who is responsible for me having given my life to Christ.  You see, Roy was just the most joyful person I had ever met.  You never saw him without a smile on his face, and his humor and his kind demeanor were irresistible.  Everybody that I worked with loved him.  And Roy was never shy about telling anyone that asked that the reason for his joyful attitude was his relationship with Jesus.  He was never preachy, never overbearing, I never heard him focus on sin or judgment, he was just loving… all the time, and he was relentless in giving glory to God for what God had done for him in his life.  Roy didn’t preach.  He just suggested that people should “come and see”.

            If it wasn’t for Roy’s influence and Roy’s persistence, it’s entirely possible that I would not be standing here today.  It is because of Roy’s faithfulness to the task of sharing his faith that I began to ask questions and that I began to read and study the Bible.  And he had this impact on me in spite of the fact that I do not recall him ever having quoted a Bible verse.  I don’t remember ever having a discussion with him about the whys and the wherefores of faith, all that I remember of his witness is the love that he showed to everyone around him, and his gentle persistence in asking people, myself included, to “come and see”.

            I did not make an immediate commitment to become a follower of Jesus, in fact, Roy doesn’t even know that I became a follower of Jesus.  I moved to New Jersey from Boston right about the same time that Roy graduated from college and accepted a good job in hospital administration somewhere in western Massachusetts, I believe.  Sadly, we lost track of one another and I have never been able to locate him.  But his fingerprints and his influence are all over the messages that I bring every Sunday and his example of being a loving and joyful follower of Jesus is something that I have tried to make a part of my own life too.

            So, why am I telling you all this?  I’m talking about this to help us to understand that sharing our faith may not be exactly what we think it is.  Sharing our faith may not be as frightening or as intimidating as we may think.  Because, at its core, sharing our faith is all about us being ourselves.  Or more accurately, being the people that God has created us to be.  It’s about taking the gifts that God has given us and using those gifts in a way that invites others to “come and see”.  Roy’s gift was a gift of hospitality, a gentle, kind, and engaging personality that drew others to himself and presented him with opportunities to give glory to God.  My gift is music, and God has given me the privilege of using music to glorify Him and the ability to write songs that ask others to “come and see”.  And so, this morning I ask, what is your gift?  What do you genuinely enjoy doing?  And how can you take your gift and use it to give others the opportunity to “come and see”?  How has God equipped you to reach others with the Good News of the Gospel.  Is your gift a gift for baking? For gardening? For hospitality? For crocheting or knitting? Could you lead a book group or a music listening group or an art appreciation group? Could you organize a game night or a dinner party or a night out.  Using your gifts in a non-church, non-religious, no pressure setting can very well open up opportunities for conversation and give YOU a chance to ask others to “come and see”

            Mark Havel says, “One of my favorite one-liners from [the theologian and author] Shane Claiborne, [is] that the Gospel spreads best, not by force, but by fascination.  When we demonstrate our salvation – not explain it, not prove or try to make sense of it, but demonstrate [it] – with acts of love and grace and mercy; with acts of justice, peace, welcome and hospitality.”  [3] That is when we become effective witnesses, that is when others will be open to our invitation to “come and see”..

            This is what sharing the Gospel is actually about.  It’s about showing the love of God to others by allowing HIS love to shine through us in our day to day lives.  It’s about using the gifts with which God has blessed us to love and care for others so that, through us and through our actions others are given the opportunity to “come and see”

            There is nothing more important that we can do with our lives.  No gift that we can offer another that is greater than the invitation to “come and see” Jesus, to find out what He is all about, and to be led by Him into an eternal kingdom that is anchored in love and acceptance and grace.

            My dear friends, the light of God shines oh so brightly, and it shines in your life.   Don’t hide that light.  God has given it to you for a reason.  Just as God gave that light to my friend Roy in order that he could be a beacon that led me to Jesus, let us be the light that leads others.  Let us be the ones who are asking others to “come and see”.

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[1] Chelsey Harmon, CEPreaching.org, John 1:29-42 Commentary

[2] Edward W. Klink III, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 156

[3] Mark Havel, CrossOfGrace.org, “Come and see, go and show”

January 4, 2026

John 1:1-18

I spent a couple of years working as a store manager for a flooring store down near Long Beach Island.  I became friendly with one of our customers who invited me to see the home that he was building on LBI and to see the floors that we were installing.  This gentleman had purchased two adjacent beachfront homes, torn them both down and in their place, he had built one house with ten bedrooms, ten and a half bathrooms, and a wraparound porch with steps that led directly down to the beach.  (Must be nice, right?)  I don’t remember the square footage anymore, but the place was huge. In my conversations with this gentleman, I found out that he was in advertising and that he is the person who came up with the design that is on the can of a VERY popular beverage.  He told me that, if he had never done any other work in his life, he could have retired comfortably just from the money that he was making from his design of that soda can.  I’m not going to do any advertising here today, but that soda can is instantly recognizable to a very sizable portion of the world’s population.

In the advertising business, they call that a “logo”.  And researchers state that the average American can recognize up to a thousand businesses by their logo alone.  Whether it’s the little polo player on the breast of some of our shirts, three stripes on a sneaker, or a couple of golden arches, logos effectively identify brands and help to promote the sales of merchandise for those brands.  But a logo should do more than just identify a brand.  A logo should represent something about the product itself, about the quality of the shirt, or the comfort of the sneakers, or the convenience of the fast food, logos are intended to represent the brand and all that that brand stands for.  And in many instances logos can be quite effective in doing that.

Our Gospel lesson today begins by talking about “The Word”.  But John doesn’t even give us a hint as to who or what this “Word” is, until verse 2 where the pronoun “He” is attached to “The Word” and we now know that “The Word” is indeed referring to a person.  Now, in the Greek the word from which we translate the English word “Word” is Λόγος (low-gose).  And in ancient Greek, Λόγος had a meaning that was quite similar to our modern usage of the word “Logo”.  It’s more than just a word describing a person or an object or an idea, Λόγος also was a word intended to convey the character of that to which it represents.  And here, that is certainly the case as the Λόγος will be described in some detail in John’s prologue.

In ancient literature stories often began with a prologue that gave listeners a little background information to help them to better understand the story that was about to be told, and often also to introduce us to the main characters.  Fans of Shakespeare will recognize the prologue to Romeo and Juliet, “Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.”  Of course there is more to this prologue, introducing the main characters and the substance of the story but you get the point.  And so, John has chosen to do exactly this; to write a prologue that introduces the main character in his story and that fills us in on a few details that will become important as his story unfolds.

And so, what exactly is John telling us about this Λόγος?  John begins by explaining to us that the Λόγος existed before time began, with John’s opening words “In the beginning” echoing the opening words of Genesis and the creation story.  The Voice translation of the Bible renders this verse as, “Before time itself was measured the Λόγος was speaking”.  John tells us that the Λόγος was WITH God and that the Λόγος WAS God…  So important is this idea to John that he repeats it, saying “He was with God in the beginning”.  John then tells us that all of creation was made through the Λόγος and this also is so important to John that he repeats this as well.  “Without Him nothing would have been made that was made”.  Even though the doctrine of the Trinity did not yet exist at the time of this writing, the prologue to John offers powerful support to that doctrine.

Next, in our reading, John declares that the Λόγος is full of light and that that light is the light for all humankind.  If we walk into a dark room and turn on a light, the room isn’t dark anymore, is it?  Light and darkness cannot exist in the same space.  John tells us that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  And the word that John chooses that we translate as “overcome” is κατέλαβεν  (Kah-táy-la-ven) which, according to Helps Word Studies means to “grasp something in a forceful manner; to apprehend or to comprehend something in a way that makes it one’s own.”  And so, the darkness is unable to grasp or even to understand the light; the light makes no sense to the darkness.  A world that has rejected its creator is a world that is in darkness.  The Λόγος brings light and understanding to that world.

After a brief explanation that John the Baptist is not himself the light, the author John continues, explaining that the true Light that gives light to everyone was among us, but that even though the world was made through the Λόγος, the world did not recognize Him.  The Λόγος came to those who He created and they refused to receive Him.  It is the single greatest tragedy of our creation that so much of the world fails to… or refuses to… recognize its creator.

But there is good news, and that news is that some will recognize their Creator, and those who do will be given the right to be called Children of God.  But John has something this is really important to say about this.  He says that this right comes not from the lineage of our birth, nor from any of our own actions, nor from the works of any other human, but only by the will of God.  Those who believe do so because God has made it possible for them to believe.  God calls His children to see Him, to know Him, and to follow Him.  And those who answer that call become children of God; not slaves, not acquaintances, not subordinates, children… actual members of God’s family.  With all of the rights of family members, and also all of the responsibilities.

As we consider this mystery of why some of the created should not recognize their creator we have to ask ourselves how did this happen?  And there is one thing that stands out.  And that is the fact that the will of the creator in our lives can sometimes be inconvenient.  God calls us to care for others when our preference is to take care of ourselves.  God calls for generosity of resources and of heart when our preference is for retaining those things for ourselves.  God calls us to lives that are loving and compassionate when our preference is often to be self-centered.  God calls us to live in loving community, recognizing the image of God that dwells in each and every one of our neighbors; He calls us to inclusion when our preference is to exclude those who don’t look like us, or talk like us, or worship like us, or love like us.  Desmond Tutu once said, “God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.” [1]

The Λόγος came to us for three specific reasons.  First, the Λόγος came to show us WHO GOD IS.  Jesus IS God.  In His every action, His every teaching, His every example Jesus lived as Emmanuel… God among us.  Through His love, His compassion, His inclusivity, and His fairness, we get to see exactly who God is.  We get to see what God cares about, what God loves, and what grieves God.  Through the life of Jesus, we come to know the creator of the universe in an intimate and personal way;  Remembering that Jesus said to Philip, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”.

Second, Jesus came to teach us what God expects of us.  All of that love and grace and compassion that Jesus showed to the world?  That is who God is teaching us to be.  Bit by bit the Spirit molds us and shapes us into people who are learning to live in ways that exhibit Christ-likeness – in our day to day lives.  Lives that show love and grace and compassion to our neighbors; each and every one of whom is one of God’s beloved children.

Lastly, the Λόγος came for redemption.  Jesus faced every temptation that we face and understands on a deeply personal level just how difficult life can be.  And though we are called to be Holy, just as He is holy, God does not expect the impossible from us.  What He does expect is for us to trust Him to restore the relationship with Him that we were intended to have from the very foundation of the universe.  Jesus came to bear the burden of our sins and to set us free not only from the penalties for our sins, but also from slavery to sin as the Spirit guides us into new life.

But how does this all happen?  In the next verse John tells us that, “The Λόγος became flesh and lived among us.  We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  And as is so often the case, there is more to this passage than meets the eye.  In the Greek, the word that we translate as “lived” is ἐσκήνωσεν (Es-kay-nó-sen).  And the word actually means tabernacled.  It’s like saying that God pitched His tent in our campsite.  Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome say, “[This] seeing of the divine glory is made possible by the incarnation of The Word, who ‘tabernacled among us’. – [This] recalls the theme of God’s dwelling with Israel, in the tabernacle of the wilderness wanderings and the Temple at Jerusalem. In the humanity of Jesus, the Christian community has beheld the very divine glory Moses wished to see, that unique and specific presence of God that hovered over the tabernacle as a cloud by day and a fire by night”. [2]

We have been blessed and privileged to see, in the person of Jesus, the divine Λόγος, the glory of God Himself.  And we have discovered the fact that this glory is not a glory that is about grandeur or mastery.  It is instead a glory that is based on selfless love and tender care.  Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome again, “To behold God is to be a recipient of wave after wave of the divine generosity ([or] grace) and to experience God’s faithfulness to the ancient promises ([or] truth).  ‘Seeing’ includes but goes beyond mere sense perception; it has to do with becoming children of God, with discovering the divine benevolence and reliability’” [3]

            The Λόγος became flesh and lived among us.  God Himself, in His great love for us, became fully human so that we may know Him exactly as He is.  The ancient church said, “The Son of God became the son of man so that the children of man might become children of God.”  Humanity rejected its creator, but the creator neither rejected nor abandoned humanity.  On the contrary, the Λόγος chose to leave His heavenly glory to become fully human and to die on a cross, in order that humanity may be reconciled to the God who loves us beyond measure, and who calls us to love beyond measure in return.

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[1] Desmond Tutu, God’s Dream

[2] Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV Year A, Pg. 80

[3] Ibid, Pg. 81