In the Beginning… 

John 1:1-5, 14 

January 1, 2017 

Mark S. Bollwinkel 

             

Bret Harte’s, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (Harvard Classics Shelf Fiction 1917), tells of Roaring Camp, the meanest and toughest mining camp in California during the Gold Rush.   Murder and theft were common.  It was a place inhabited exclusively by men, with one exception.  Her name was Cherokee Sal and she died while giving birth to a baby girl.

Without a mother to care for the child, these rough men were suddenly thrust into the awkward role of providing for the needs of the little girl.  They began by placing her in a box with some old rags.  But that didn’t seem right, so they sent one of the men 80 miles over the mountains to buy a rosewood cradle.   Another man traveled all the way to Sacramento to purchase some silk and lace blankets which they used to make the baby comfortable and warm.

Seeing the beautiful cradle with the new blankets made the men realize just how dirty the floor of the cabin was, so they scrubbed the floor on their hands and knees until it was clean.   Then they noticed the dirty walls and windows of the cabin.  So they washed the walls, windows and ceiling and put up curtains.  The change in the baby’s surroundings was amazing.   But not just in the cabin.  The men, who had been used to loud, angry talk and occasional fighting, had to give up their bad habits because the little girl could not get her sleep in the ruckus.

When the good weather came, they would take the little girl in her cradle and set her by the entrance to the mine so that they would see her when they came up the shaft.   Somebody noticed how dirty things were so they planted flowers and made a nice garden there.  It was all quite lovely.  The miners would bring the little girl shiny stones they happened to find in the mine.

But, that was not all.  When some of the men would pick the baby up to hold her, they realized just how dirty they were.  It wasn’t long that the general store was sold out of soap and shaving gear.  

That baby, suggested Bret Harte, changed everything. 

Of course at Christmas we celebrate the baby born in Bethlehem that changed everything, too.   Jesus’ life, teachings and his death have inspired miraculous changes of love in the world ever since.   Maybe you know such change in your life…I sure do.

How to understand who this Jesus was, and is, has been a central challenge for our faith.

A student came to me and asked me to explain to her the difference between Christianity and Judaism.  She is in love with a student who is Jewish.  They are both law students, thinking about marriage. How will they deal with the difficult differences?   I told her that I had known people who marry lawyers and go on to have happy marriages, despite the difficulties!  Just kidding.  The differences that trouble her are between two related but disparate faiths. Well, we discussed rituals, festivals, beliefs. Then she asked a fundamental question. “When it comes down to it, what is the one thing that makes Christians, Christian?”  The answer is not potluck dinners, WWJD bracelets or pushy preachers. The thing that makes us who we are is who Jesus is.   Jesus Christ is Christianity. (William Willimon, “Who do you say that I am?” August 22, 1999, Duke Chapel Web Site, chapel.duke.edu.)

            The four New Testament gospels were written to four very different communities answering this essential question, “Who is Jesus?”   Although they agree on the message of his teachings, and the importance of his life, death and resurrection, each gospel describes the answer to the question in significantly unique ways.

            In Mark, Jesus appears in his late 20’s to be baptized in the river Jordon by John the Baptist, at which time God “adopts” him as his beloved son.

            In Luke and Matthew, we hear the Christmas stories of angels, shepherds, mangers and wise men proclaiming that Emmanuel has been born of a virgin to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies of the new Messiah.

            In John, our scripture lesson this morning, we hear something entirely different.   “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth.”

            The Bible begins in the book of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  All was darkness and void….and God said let there be light…” (:1,3)   God speaks creation into order.  That “word”, to the theologian and author of John’s gospel, is Jesus Christ.   Jesus is the incarnation of the divine life force of all creation, in existence before the universe began, the spirit of light and life “made flesh to dwell among us” that we might finally come to know the true nature of God.

            In the original language the word “dwell among us” can be translated “tabernacled among us”.   Remember your Sunday school lessons about the tabernacle of the Hebrew people as Moses led them through the 40 years of wilderness wandering between their escape from slavery in Egypt and their entrance to the Promised Land (Exodus 12:31-f)?   The tabernacle was the elaborate tent and altar in which the presence of God traveled with the children of Israel.  When they struck camp and settled in a new place or went into battle against an enemy, God was right there with them.  If they had problems they wanted to bring to God, if they had sins they needed forgiven, if they had joys they wished to celebrate, the faithful could go into the mystery and majesty of the tabernacle and be with God.

            Well, for the writer of John’s gospel, in Jesus God’s intimacy and presence with us is restored, in fact it can now dwell directly in our hearts (John 3:16, 11:25-26).  So profound is John’s theology about the pre-existent Christ that scholars now suggest that the church has viewed Matthew, Mark and Luke through the “lenses” of the fourth gospel (Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, Random House, 2003).              

            So, who is Jesus for you?  Historical sage and martyr?  Fulfillment of prophecy?   Esoteric spirit, the light and life of creation itself?  Combination of all three?

            As we begin a new year, your own answer to that question would make a fine resolution.   For two millennia, millions of folks just like us have found meaning and purpose in life seeking the same.

Speaking of his own Christian faith, rock star Bono once said: 

“I find solace in places I never could have imagined ... the quiet sprinkling of my child’s head in baptism, a gospel choir drunk on the Holy Spirit in Memphis or the back of a cathedral in Rome watching the first cinematographers play with light and color in stained-glass stories of the Passion.  I am still amazed at how big, how enormous a love and mystery God is — and how small are the minds that attempt to corral this life force into rules and taboos, cults and sects” (Good News, July-August 2002, p. 40). 

            As for Jesus himself he suggests that if we want to know who he is all we need do is follow him (Mark 1:18).  All we need do is receive in faith the symbols of his body and blood in the sacrament of Holy Communion (I Corinthians 11:23-26).

            If we really want to know this Jesus, all we need do is prepare a place for God’s love in our lives…as if we were dirty, rough miners in Roaring Camp, lives transformed by the birth of a baby.

           

Amen.