We’ve heard a lot of Bible readings today. But I wanted you to hear the range of them, and then see how they amplify each other, each bringing some insight into the other, from different times in history, and using a variety of words to describe aspects of God and Jesus.
The readings Sunday by Sunday are set out in a book called the lectionary. It sets out readings for every day of the year, and for every service on each of those days! It runs on a three year cycle, with one of Matthew, Mark or Luke being read over a year. John’s gospel is significantly different in its style of writing, and parts of it are used each year in addition, often during Advent and Lent, and the Easter Season. The Lectionary was initially set up by the Roman Catholic Church, but was adopted in the latter half of the 20th century by many, although not all, protestant churches. It means if you meet someone from another Church, it’s possible you will be able to have a discussion about the readings. It also requires the preachers to preach across the whole Bible rather than a few favourite texts (although it is said most preachers just have a few themes they usually refer to!) There’s more information on Google, and other sources are available.
So today the main reading is the reading from John’s Gospel, often called the Christmas Gospel as it’s always the set reading for Christmas Day. I love it as a reading, but there are a couple of ways to approach it: the first is to examine it closely, and that is a wonderful exercise, because there is a lot in it about the closeness of God and Jesus, the purpose and nature of Jesus. John the Baptist and his mission as a foreteller of Jesus is mentioned too, as is the importance of his role as foreteller, but separateness from Jesus. The second way to approach it is just to let the words swirl around your mind and your soul in a mystical way. For me, the bits I don’t understand are swept up in a sense of the wonder of God and Jesus.
The verses from Colossians cover much the same ground, but in a simpler fashion. So the first part of the verse is this:
“For it was by God’s own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God.”
The verse starts with God. And the reading from Psalm 104 talks of the wondrous works of God: v 24 says “How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all…” It’s not just making the world and its living things, the Psalmist goes on to talk of how God provides for each creature. He also acknowledges how not being able to see God’s face is terrifying, and that God has the power of life and death in his hand. Although there God has all this great power, the Psalmist goes on to praise God in admiration and awe of what he has done. He recognises that sinners and wicked people exist, and are not of God, and he wishes them gone. But still he ends, after acknowledging that there is sin and wickedness in the world, in praising God.
The verse in Colossians then goes on to say that it was God’s own decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God, it tells of how close Jesus and God are. This is detailed in the reading from Proverbs which Rachel did for us. Now this reading begins by talking of wisdom. As we read this whole chapter, it seems to me that to put Jesus’s name in place of wisdom, it is a very accurate description of the closeness between God and Jesus, and helps us understand this closeness. It’s like reading the “Love is…” passage in 1 Corinthians, you can substitute the name of Jesus for love, to understand how comprehensive his love for us is.
Wisdom was highly valued in the Old Testament, and all those characteristics of wisdom point to great closeness to God. But the closeness between God and Jesus is even greater than that. Jesus is not only close to God in creating the world as we read in the first verses of John’s gospel v 2-3, “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made” but he goes on to be the Saviour of the world also. Paul refers to Christ as wisdom in 1 Corinthinans 1:24: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”. Paul goes on in v30 to say that Jesus by being wisdom from God has also become our righteousness, holiness and redemption – our good relationship with God, our goodness and our saviour. Wisdom in the Old Testament is shown by some writers to be Christlike, but Jesus himself is more, and does more in the world, than wisdom alone. It’s like the total being greater than the sum of its parts. It’s the difference between an orange cut into segments that you hold together in your hand, and a whole orange that someone can toss to you to catch. The whole orange is a different creature than the cut up parts of an orange being held together.
The rest of the Colossians verse is this: “Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.”
In the reading from John’s gospel, again we have two other words used that can also refer to Christ, one is “the Word” and the other is “light”. The very start of the Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word”, then v2, “He was with God in the beginning”, and v3 “ Through him all things were made”. Then the writer goes on in vs4-5: “In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” So in Jesus coming to earth as the light, God’s intention of Jesus redeeming the world is stated, as he says the light is not overcome by the darkness. In other words, good – Jesus – will overcome evil – darkness, the devil, all the bad things in the world. So in some way Jesus will accomplish this, and Paul writing in Colossians spells it out: “God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.” The writer of John’s gospel does not talk about Jesus’ death and resurrection explicitly in this passage, it’s left that the darkness does not overcome the light. There is mention of some of the difficulties that Jesus experienced when he talks of him going to his own people and them not recognising him for who he was, the Son of God come to save the world. We read of his difficulties with the people of his home town Nazareth who couldn’t believe someone who was the son of Joseph and from their own town could teach with the authority Jesus had. As for the Jews, they didn’t understand he was the Messiah they were waiting for, and fought him, opposed him, all the way to the cross and beyond.
But shed his blood he did, and did truly bring back to God all things, earthly and heavenly, in other words, he brought a unity between earth and heaven. That’s hard to get our heads around. But let’s give thanks for the unity between the DUP and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland who have finally, after two years of dispute and stubbornness, come to an agreement. Let’s pray that’s a blueprint for the war in the Middle East. Jesus has done much greater things than these in bringing all things back to God, but they give us a tiny glimpse of what this reconciliation, this redemption, will be like.
So we’ve heard a lot of the Bible today, but it is wonderful how it weaves in and out, and overlaps and informs, instructs and encourages. I pray there is some aspect of what you’ve heard today that enriches and encourages you, or maybe just fills you with awe, or mystery, but a sense of the awesomeness, and yes, mystery, that is God, and his Son, and the redemption of each one of us here, and the people we know …. and the whole world beyond as well. What a mystery, what a sacrifice.
Amen.