John seems to struggle a bit to know how to introduce the creator of the universe to us. How do you introduce somebody from whose fingertips dripped the universe itself? How do you put into words a summary of somebody who created words and thoughts? How do you do it in a limited space of time? Speaking of time, He invented that too. In the beginning of time it was precisely where John takes us. Let’s read how John introduces Jesus in versus 1. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” He was with God in the beginning, through Him all things were made.” The word was with God and the word was God! Back in the beginning in Genesis 1:1, the Bible opens stating that God made the heavens and the earth. Here John states Jesus is that same God that created the world. Do you see what I mean by John being in awe of who Jesus was or is? John knows he can't begin Jesus’s story in a stable with Jesus being born in a manger, those humble beginnings the other gospel writers started with. But how to put what he knows into words? John knows he's speaking about God himself, coming in human flesh, but how does he find the right words to convey the awesomeness of that? Have you ever been frustrated by your own words or your inability to find just the right word to express yourself? John finds the word! But one word won’t do. So, he uses two. Light and life. He takes us back to the dawn of creation, back when a word caused everything to exist, but what that word caused was life and light. Verse three, “Through him all things were made” but then John drops a bomb in verse four, “In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind”. John sees Jesus as the word that is spoken into our souls causing light to ignite and stream across the chaotic void of deep dark blackness in each one of us. Just like the first word spoken by God, “let there be light,” those words illuminate darkness of creation and so Jesus is the word that illuminance our own personal darkness. “In him was life.” John shifts from talking about physical life and light, to speaking about spiritual life and light and before we go any further it's important to know that for the rest of the book John will record Jesus speaking about spiritual things by using objects that we can see in the world around us. He does this because finding the right words can be tricky and cause confusion, so Jesus uses word pictures. It’s the use of something you already understood to teach a completely foreign concept. That's why John is using light and life to describe how Jesus changes things when you finally get him, when you finally understand and get that right word. He was the word. Light and life is what flushes in your life. We feel the heat on our skin when we walk from the shade into the sunlight. We know what that feels like. But we also feel the power of miracle whenever we watch an animal or a human give birth to a new life. There's nothing quite like either of those feelings but to be around Jesus was the closest thing to it, in the spiritual realm. In Him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. He's like the light to your darkness; he's the life to your death and he's that word that you've been struggling for and when it finally comes to you everything makes sense. Light. Life. The Word. John uses something we physically know to help us understand something spiritual. That's why Jesus used examples from the physical world to help people understand spiritual things. For example, when Jesus sits on a well. He tells a woman coming there to draw water he can quench her thirst with living water, her response in John 4 is, “you don't have a bucket”. She heard water and thought physical. When he was speaking about something that would fill her spiritually. Just like then, people still misunderstand Jesus a lot. Another example, John records Jesus conversing with Nicodemus he's a religious guy and Jesus tells him you must be born again. Nicodemus says, I'm an old man, what am I supposed to crawl back inside the birth canal and go for a second ride? That's impossible. Jesus says, I'm speaking to you of physical things that you don't understand, how will you understand if I speak to you of spiritual things. Words again that are so easily misunderstood. That's where John struggles for real in the next verse 5 of chapter 1, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Let’s ask a question. Does it seem to you like Jesus is used to being misunderstood? Don’t worry if you have misunderstood God, the Bible or even Jesus. If you don’t quite understand a lot of what we are going over, that’s ok too. Jesus can take it; He is patient, and He knows this is all new to you. Here’s another question. What would you do if you were God and people were constantly misunderstanding you? God sent the law, misunderstood. God sent the prophets, misunderstood. Would you keep using more words to be understood, keep throwing more words out even though you’re being more misunderstood each time than the time before? Maybe you would, if you found the right word. Maybe Jesus was the right word to help those in the dark understand who God was. Maybe Jesus is like that word you search for when all other words fail to express, you’re meaning. Light helps see and words help us understand. For this reason, verse 9 John calls Jesus the true light which gives light to everyone. Read that again, “The true light that gives light to everyone”, but if Jesus gives light to everyone how come some still can't see him? If the light shining all around and you can't see it's because you're blind. Let's keep that in mind as we read the next verse and John introduces another character. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John he came as a witness to bear witness about the light.” Doesn't that sound odd to you that someone has to bear witness to the light? I mean when a light is on you either see it or you don't. You don't need someone to tell you when the light is shining? Do you? Again yes, if the person's blind and that might be just another clue to why John presents Jesus as that perfect word for God, to express himself to a blind world because when you're blind and you can't see the light, you can still hear the words. Words can still reach those that are blind, and Jesus was that word, remember that speaks into our darkness. Later John will introduce us to a man born blind, who couldn't see Jesus, but heard his voice, recognized Him as savior of the world and had his eyes opened physically as well as spiritually. But that wasn’t the case with everyone in John. Verse 10, “He was in the world, and through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” Can you hear John struggling again? It’s like he’s in shock. “The world was made through him, but the world did not recognize him.” It just didn’t make sense. But John ends in a high note in verse 12, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” “To those who receive him.” Like that word you’ve been searching for, that’s all you need to become spiritually reborn. I'm glad he didn't say that you have to fully understand everything. Even scholars wrestle with the enormity with what’s here. Nobody expects anyone to come to this for the first time and get it completely. But John is weaving multiple themes in this introduction; light, life, darkness, being born of God and it will build as we go through John's book. Let's just take it in for a second. The poetry the enormity of who this is that John is introducing and what he offers us, Life.
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