FAITH FORMATION DISCUSSION AND SCRIPTURE STUDY NOTES

Notes compiled from a variety of sources, including and The New Interpreter’s Bible

Sunday, January 3, 2010

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS – YEAR C

Theme: A new theology of Jesus

Liturgical color: White

John 1:1-18

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And 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.

15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

CONTEXT OF THE TEXT

In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), we must wait for a gradual unfolding of the identity of Jesus. But John's gospel tells us, up front, who Jesus is and what he means. Christ is the "Logos" - the "Word" who "was with God." Not only who "was with God", but that the "Word" was God! This is considered very high Christology - affirming that the Logos (Word) and God are one.

The once obscured expression of the eternal God is now revealed and present. The Creator's declaration of intention for the world, hidden by the words of the law of Moses, is now proclaimed in clarity by the Word made flesh.

This "new" revelation is a complete break from Judaism and hence expresses a unique development of early Christianity. It is, as John Shelby Spong would say, an example of the evolving and emerging theology of early Christianity.

John was writing his gospel at a time when the church was heading down the developmental stream away from Judaism. As more and more Gentile believers joined the church, Jesus' Jewish roots became more obscure, less important and even a point of serious contention.

John clears the deck, so to speak, of all historical confusion for the true revelation of God to be introduced.

THOUGHTS (AND QUESTIONS) TO PONDER:

1)The synoptic gospel writers (Matthew, Mark & Luke) seemed more interested in telling the story of the historical Jesus, whereas John's interest was to focus more on the theological Jesus and less so on the historical nature of Jesus. The gospel underscores how Christianity is a revealed religion. We can only say something like "God is love," because we have seen that love demonstrated in Jesus. What has been your experience in encountering God as love, as revealed through Jesus?

2)How are you able to know God? What "proof" do you have of God's existence? Is Jesus your proof? If so, why and how?

3)The claim is made that the only one who is able to know God is the one who has seen God - who was with God from the first - who is God. Jesus. If it were not for Jesus, do you think there is any way you could know who God was/is?

4)Most of us come to church to sing hymns of praise, to pray and give and to serve God. But we do so only because God has been revealed to us in Jesus. Right? Is that statement comforting? Unsettling?

5)Jesus has come to us so that we might come to God. In Christ, on Christmas, God has reached out to us. Emmanuel, God with us. God for us.

REFLECTIONS

People come to church wanting to know God – or at the very least seeking some kind of connection with spirit. Though God is distant and invisible, out of love, God has been revealed to us in glorious truth in Jesus the Christ - the Logos - the Word made flesh dwelling among us.

The newness wrought by God in Jesus is so dramatic that a conventional narrative of origins is insufficient. That is because the story of Jesus is not ultimately a story about Jesus; it is, in fact, the story of God. The Word's incarnation in the person of Jesus is intended to redefine life, creation, and salvation. In John 1:1-18, the Fourth Evangelist gives the Gospel reader the theological road map of God's self-revelation in Jesus. John 1:1-18 does not allow readers to distance themselves from that revelation, but instead draws the reader into the theological claims of the text.

John reads the story of creation and God's Word through the lens of the incarnation, not simply Old Testament traditions. So the story of creation gives way quickly to another story.

John 1:1-18 appears in the church's lectionaries during the Christmas season. The lectionary then asks the church to regard Jesus' coming into the world from the perspective of this text. This text contains none of the traditional elements of the Christmas story. Instead of manger, angels and magi, John 1:1-18 presents the church with its explicit theological vision of the difference the incarnation makes in the life of the world.

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