11/29/2020 - BYM Worship

Early December greetings – brisk hellos – to each and every one of our Bethel Youth Ministry community!

Three days ago Pastor John read to us from the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Alright then, what is this “glory”?  Well one dictionary definition is “praise, honor, or distinction extended by common consent”. That definition is not lame but it is pretty tame; God's glory is infinitely more intense in character:

Read from the Book of Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 through 7: “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”  “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”

God's glory is so great that Moses could not come near, and he hid his face in fear of God's tremendous glory. Much later Moses is required to go up Mount Sinai alone to receive the Ten Commandments. He comes back down, and we read:

Exodus 34: 30-35  “When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai. When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.”

And also in the New Testament for instance the Gospel of Matthew 17:1-8 “After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, 'Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.' While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!'  When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. 'Get up,' he said. 'Don’t be afraid.' When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

By now we get it: God's glory is nothing like the usual human concept. It is a good, great, but fearful thing! God's glory bespeaks the essential difference between the Creator and any of His creations, including us.

Us. 

Imperfect, sinful, condemned us. But unfathomably so beloved by Him that he set in motion the most improbable, incredible rescue plan.

For us!

It was He, and He first took form as a helpless infant.

For many centuries the western world, and lately the whole world, has celebrated the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, of the House of David, the Christ, in late December. We call it Christmas Day, in fact! The Christ, the Messiah, Our Savior, came to earth as a helpless infant on that day we say. 

Our Savior a helpless infant. Let us meditate on that incongruity for a moment. We shall seek to resolve it!

For many centuries the western world, and lately the whole world, has celebrated the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, of the House of David, the Christ, in late December. We call it Christmas Day, in fact! The Christ, the Messiah, Our Savior, came to earth as a helpless infant on that day we say. 

Our Savior a helpless infant. Let us meditate on that incongruity for a moment. We shall seek to resolve it!​

If the first Gospel was a breathless account by the Apostle Peter's amanuensis John-Mark to tell unbelievers what Jesus DID and the next two Gospels more extensive efforts to record what Jesus SAID, the last Gospel, that of the Apostle John, was crafted to make resoundingly clear who Jesus IS.

John begins chapter 1 verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Harkening back to the first lines of Genesis, John establishes here that in Jesus there is a NEW CREATION.

The Apostle John bids us to understand from the get-go that Jesus is the Word of God and thus is God.  Starting his gospel with that incalculably enormous proposition is why we say that the Gospel of John was written for BELIEVERS, not for people who are merely curious.  An unbeliever will be lost in bewilderment by the time he gets to verse 2! Pastor John well illustrated this point in reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 1 verse 18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

As Pastor John so well explained, the Word reveals who God is. That is the essence of revelation. Consider: as some of us discussed in our after-service chatroom session, there is a big difference between Knowing ABOUT someone (what you've read about) versus actually KNOWING someone (which begins to occur when you TALK TO EACH OTHER. Hence QT!
 
The Koine Greek λόγος “logos” means “written word”. It comes from λέγω “lego” meaning “I say”. From it we get “-logy”, the REASONED study of something. So this gospel all boils down to Jesus being the logic of God. You realize as you read this gospel that Jesus is CONSISTENT and he is PERFECT. Jesus Himself, the person, is the most convincing argument for Christianity. Jesus, the Person is the superior feature in any argument. Without Jesus CHRIST, CHRISTmas (and Christianity) makes no sense. There is no central sense to the hoopla of Christmas, and there is no sense trying to make a merely nice human being out of a man who spent half his public career claiming to be God!

“Became flesh” means that Jesus became TANGIBLE and real to us. He is God’s tangible expression of love to us. Now at some point in our lives (hopefully!) we each find one special person who we like (well, love) so much that we want to hold on to that person to the end of our days. So we marry, and symbolically the union between us and our special person, we slip rings on to ring fingers. As Pastor John said “If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it". That is love. How much more God's love that in baby Jesus He came not only to bring the message of good news, but He IS the Good News. God is love such that the Word became flesh.
 
In Jesus God became VULNERABLE. This right from the start. Who could be more vulnerable than a helpless infant? Thus began God's mission to us in human form, who could eat and drink and be angry and weep. Pastor John read to us from Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

God became weak and vulnerable so that we, who are weak and vulnerable, can approach him.  As we know about the glory of God, how else could He become approachable?

Onward in Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

This teaches us that if Jesus became vulnerable for us, we can become vulnerable in our relationships with each other. We can learn to focus not on “having my needs met”, but on “meeting your needs.”  It allows us to see Jesus as one who died for us to meet our need as condemned by imperfection to burn for our sin. It is the only way to destroy sin without destroying us.

Many or most of us are too young to know the depths of despair.

Yet.

But keep in mind the picture of the person feeling quite beat up by recent vicissitudes in life. In the black depths of despair, this person says “I  prayed and God did not answer my prayers.”

Well, the human Jesus prayed in the garden – sweated blood in fact - but still felt abandoned on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as He stared into the black abyss of Hell. Through Jesus our intercessor, our father God knows our travails in this life, to an acute degree. Before we even know them, in fact!

The baby Jesus was God who dwelt among us, new arrived on earth.

As Pastor John said, “dwelt among us” means at its root “pitched a tent” or “tabernacled.”  A  tabernacle was a tent where God dwelt for worship by his itinerant faithful (the Israelites wandering in the desert). Now, in the Old Testament to encounter the glory of God was fatal; it was just too much for people to handle. Remember how Moses had to go up Mount Sinai by himself to be in God's glory to receive the Ten Commandments? So, God “concealed” His glory in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. Recall God's very detailed instructions to the Israelites for crafting the tabernacle in Exodus chapters 25 through 31?

By contrast, in the New Testament, the Apostle John writes (John 1:14) that “...we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son…”   Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us so that we can have full access to God. Again, just the little bit of glory that God could show Moses was like sunlight hitting the moon. And even that was too much for Israelites at the base of the mountain. All this about approachability again reminds us, as Pastor John so necessarily emphasizes, that belief in the Christ – true Christianity – is not about religion but about relationships. As we believe so through His love we are adopted into His family, as co-heirs of the portion of the Son, to enjoy forever. When 33 years later the infant Jesus died on the cross in human maturity for our sins, the Father's unapproachability was cancelled, as the veil in the temple in Jerusalem that separated the glory of God from His people was torn from top to bottom. Salvation was never anything we could possibly achieve. But through the life and sacrifice of the vulnerable Jesus, it was something that we now receive.

So in this season of receiving we receive incomparably the best of all – Joy to the World – the wonders of His love.

Glory to God in the Highest!