How is your sense of wonder these days?  How is your sense of wonder.  I like to think (and hopefully practice) that we may come to church and hear things that we’re not hearing anywhere else.  I also like to think that we can come to church and consider questions that we’re not typically going to hear anywhere else.  So.  How is your sense of wonder? Think back to a time when you were filled with wonder.  I can’t read this passage without thinking of it as John’s Christmas Story, and so bear with me as I return to Christmas.  We have different opinions on the whole Santa Claus thing, no doubt.  In my family we went all out.  Letters written to Santa Claus and sent up the chimney (this was before his address was made known).  Milk and cookies left out.  Stockings placed by the fireplace.  The wonder of waking up Christmas morning and the milk and cookies were gone and there was a brand new Stretch Armstrong!  He came!  How could he do it?!  So many houses all over the world in one night!  But it had to be true.  They would report his progress via NORAD (in the height of the Cold War too) and this was always my ace in the hole when it came to recess arguments about the existence of Santa Claus.

He came.  How could such a thing be?

We grow up.  We get to know things.  This may take away from our sense of wonder.  It was my parents all along, though I didn’t love them any less for finding that out.  My Stretch Armstrong didn’t last.  I left him too close to the fireplace one day and he melted. 

You may be doing great with wonder and if you are that’s great.  My prayer for us as we go through the Gospel of John through these weeks leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday is that our sense of wonder is deepened.  That we may marvel at the story of Jesus, no matter how many times we have heard it.  That it not might not ever be something we get used to.  That we would be marvelling, to use the KJV language (“They marvelled at his words.”)  That we would hear good news newly.  That we would hear good news afresh and refreshed in the Holy Spirit of God.

Someone has said that “The Gospel according to John was written out of the thrill of actual contact with its leading figure, and one senses the tremors of this contact on every subsequent page.”  One senses the thrum of excitement and joy on every page.  God had been encountered and as we heard last week, Jesus continues to be revealed to us.  Listen to how this encounter is described in 1 John 1 and let us take it in.  “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us – we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.  We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  This is the 500 billion kilometre view, though really we can’t measure it.  We’re talking about an outside-of-time view that is outside of our ability to comprehend and we don’t need to worry about this.  Our dear friend Dennis Bruce would speak of this passage at Christmas time at an Out of the Cold service right here in our sanctuary and would show pictures like these from the Hubble space telescope.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  I wish I had the voice of James Earl Jones with which to read those words, but we do our best. 

In the face of questions like “What is the meaning of life?”  “What’s it all about (Alfie)?” from the pen of the brilliant Burt Bacharach.  Is it just for the moment we live?  Are we meant to take more than we give?  If only fools are kind, then I guess it’s wise to be cruel?  Is that all there is?  If that all there is, then let’s break out the booze (or our substance of choice) and have a ball.  Is this it?  I’ve stood beside a death bed at which this statement was made.  “I guess that’s it.”  Some of the saddest and most untrue words I’ve ever heard.  Is that it?  Ludwig Wittgenstein, a 20^th century philosopher realized the need for something beyond ourselves.  He was in no way speaking from a Christian perspective but he was speaking something most telling.  He said “The solution to the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.”

To which we all say “Amen brother Ludwig.”  Here’s the good news right from the beginning of John’s good news.  Humanity is neither first, nor have we been left alone.  The Word is from the immeasurable beginning.  We have all come into being through the Word, and the Word has come to us.  There are all kinds of symbols used by John which have become most dear and precious to followers of Christ over 2,000 years.  One of these is light.  Light and life to all, he brings, risen with healing in his wings.  “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”  We like to say “This is the life.”  “This is the life” is largely dependent on circumstances of course.  Rest.  Relaxation.  Ease.  Comfort.  In Christ we can rightly say, this is the life, no matter what circumstances or stage of life in which we are found.  The Word was with God.  The word “with” here means not only “with” but “towards” or “facing toward.”  The Word was facing God (and of course the Holy Spirit was involved too).  The Word, who was God was facing God; living in fellowship with God; living in loving communion (co-union) with God.  To live in such a way is to know life.  Life eternal.  Life of the ages.  Life from above.  Life lived daily in Christ and with Christ in me.  Life for each and every moment of each and every day, which even death does not end, for the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  Even death did not overcome the light of the World.  Getting to know the Light is like seeing the dawn break over everything.  Getting to know him is like coming to see everyone and everything in a whole new light.  There’s a great C.S. Lewis quote where he picks up this light imagery.  Lewis says, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen – not only because I see it, but by its light I see everything else.” 

The light shines in the darkness, present continuous tense here.  The light of the World continues to shine on in the Word’s followers who are called to be witnesses to the light in our words and in our actions.  The first such witness was a man named John, and the opening zeroes in on him in vv 6-9.  “There was a man sent from, whose name was John.  He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”  We will speak more of testimony in the coming weeks.  Talking about Jesus, showing about Jesus.  Telling about what Jesus has done in your life; what Jesus is doing in your life.  It’s wonderful to have those opportunities when God puts those opportunities in front of us.  I like to describe it as telling of what God has done in your life, and you know it was of God because it could not have come from you.  Peace.  Comfort. Purpose.  Forgiveness.  Love.  It’s not about boasting when we tell of such things, because we are not boasting of ourselves.  It’s not about us.  He was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.  I am not the light but I am called to let the light shine through me.  Let us not think too much of ourselves, followers of Christ.  Let us not think too little of ourselves either.  “You’re the light of the world,” as Jesus will tell his followers.  Let us not think we are insufficient for this task when we are in Christ; when we have the Spirit of Christ; when we have been given the power to become children of God, for that is what we are, not based on family/national/ethnic/religious background or our own will or anyone else’s will, but born of God.  Born of the grace of God and the gift of faith.  The invitation is to receive him; to believe him; to entrust ourselves to him. This prologue is not just about who God is, but who we might become in Jesus.

At v 14, the 500,000,000 km view now zooms in.  I’m thankful for Google Earth which helps us to imagine this. “And the Word became flesh, and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” (14)  It’s popular to say in some quarters “When they go low, we go high.”  When we went low, God humbled himself and came to where we were.  May we never lose our sense of wonder and thanks for this great truth.  Someone has put it like this, “… in the human Jesus of Nazareth, the Absolute became relative, the Almighty — a baby, the Ancient of Days — nowadays, the Divine — human, the Eternal — temporal, the Immortal — mortal, the Infinite — finite. The believing human race is deeply grateful for this Immense Descent.”  We are deeply grateful for this Immense Descent.  God pitched his tent among us.  God moved into our neighbourhood.  Words which are used to try and help us get our hearts around this wonderful truth of God with us.

This is John’s Christmas story and I want to share a story of Christmas through which I learned something about what it means that God moved into our neighbourhood. Christmas Eve 2011 was my first Christmas as a pastor here at Blythwood.  It was a Saturday night which meant Out of the Cold.  Over 100 people sharing dinner downstairs and around 70 staying overnight.  We had a group of people from church who were going to be singing Christmas Carols.  We were set up at the piano in the middle of the room and I’m looking a little nervous here.  It was not unknown for the odd scuffle to break out.  Nothing ever too serious, thankfully.  Just as we were about to begin, the sound of chairs being pushed back forcefully and angry shouts.  Trouble had broken out.  Rocky was sitting at the piano and I leaned down and said “Just start playing ‘Silent Night’!” Maybe this would help ease things.  It didn’t. More people joined in the fight and it took some minutes for Dixon Hall staff (for whom we were always thankful) to quiet things down.  We sang eventually but the whole episode cast a pall.  It made people tense, uneasy, nervous.  I was praying about it later on and I said “Why God, on Christmas Eve of all nights with the kids there and everything?”  I heard God say to me, “I came down into the mess, and I call you to be in the middle of the mess too.  Know that I am with you too.”

When we come to the end of our passage for this morning, we find that we too are included in John’s prologue.  “From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.” (16)  Unmerited favour has shown up.  Grace and truth have come in the form of this man who is God.  God has been made known, God is made known, and God will be made known, in the Word of Light and Life.

What else could we do but wonder, but marvel?  As Lent begins, I want us to have a chance to signal our intention to walk in the light of Jesus, and to let his light shine in and through us.  That we would go through our days being living candles illuminating grace upon grace.  I invite us to light our candles with the phrase, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.

Amen