Well, would you turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 14 through 18.
That's page 833 in the Pew Bible.
Let me pray as we come to God's Word together.
Our Father in heaven, as we come to your Word written, help us to behold your Word incarnate,
our Lord Jesus.
It's him that we really want to see.
It's his glory that we want to behold.
So help us, Lord, to do that by your Holy Spirit.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, let me read John, chapter 1, 14 through 18.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bore witness about him and cried out,
This was he of whom I said,
He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
In his book, Simply Christian, N.T. Wright tells this parable in one of his chapters.
There was once a ruler, a dictator, who wanted everything in his country to be thought through
and worked out according to a strictly rational system.
Nothing would be left to chance.
But this ruler, this dictator, noticed one day that the water sources around the country were erratic
and in some cases quite dangerous.
There were thousands of springs of water, often in the middle of towns and cities.
They could be useful, but sometimes they would cause floods,
and sometimes they got polluted, and often they burst out in new places
and damaged roads and fields and houses.
So the dictator decided on a sensible, rational policy.
The whole country, or at least every part where there was any suggestion of water,
would be paved over with concrete so thick that no spring of water could ever penetrate it.
The water that people needed would be brought to them by a complex system of pipes,
and we would even treat the water with some chemicals and keep the people healthy.
With the dictator controlling the supply, everyone would have what they needed,
and there wouldn't be any more nuisance from these unregulated springs.
Well, for many years, the plan worked just fine.
People got used to their water coming from the new system.
It tasted a bit strange, and sometimes they would look back longingly
to the bubbling streams and fresh springs they used to enjoy.
And many of the problems didn't go away.
It turned out the air was just as polluted at times as the water.
But on the whole, the people praised the dictator for his forward-looking wisdom.
A generation passed.
All seemed to be well.
Then, without warning,
the springs that had gone on bubbling and sparkling beneath the solid concrete
could no longer be contained.
In a sudden explosion,
they burst through the concrete that people had taken for granted.
And water shot up everywhere,
through the sidewalks and in the middle of the roads,
through the floors of their shops and homes.
Water came shooting from all directions.
Some people loved it.
At last they could get water without depending on the system.
Others were dismayed.
Especially those who ran the water pipes.
Where would all this lead?
Well, this parable is meant to tell the story of the Western world
for the last few hundred years.
For the past two or more centuries,
philosophical and cultural currents have tried
to pave over spirituality or religion or transcendence
with a thick layer of concrete.
Pack it down.
Keep it away.
Only give it a very small, controlled place in our private lives.
But on the whole, just keep it buried.
But the concrete couldn't hold.
The deep human longing for spirituality,
for transcendence,
keeps breaking through.
For many years, sociologists thought that religion would eventually die out.
That we just wouldn't need it anymore.
But now those confident predictions are seen to be foolish.
The thick concrete of materialism just couldn't hold.
And now the springs of spirituality are bursting forth from every corner.
The human heart longs to be in touch with something greater
and something deeper.
Of course, for many people in the West,
that does not mean a return to traditional religion, does it?
Religion still seems stuffy and cold and boring,
but spirituality,
a way to connect with transcendence and meaning,
that is alive and well.
Just walk through the aisles of Barnes & Noble long enough,
and you'll stumble across the section
filled with books about meditation
and mindfulness,
about mind and body and spirit.
our age is an age hungry
for something more than the old,
concrete, layered world
of the 19th and 20th century rationalism could provide.
And you know,
in that hunger,
there are no shortage of options today.
And there were no shortage of options in John's day either.
The Apostle John,
who wrote what we just read,
spirituality in the first century
was alive and well,
just like in the 21st century.
Now, in John's day,
there were sort of the classic options.
You know,
there was good old paganism
with lots of gods,
each god with his or her own sphere of influence.
You could pick a few of your favorites
based on your tribe or your profession,
and you could hope they would give you
some kind of control or blessing in this life.
And then,
on the other hand,
there was good old Platonism.
The gods were sort of out there
in their own sphere,
and the trick was to escape
this messy material world
and to go dwell there.
But alongside these kind of classic options,
there were some more up-to-date versions.
In the place of good old paganism,
there was Stoicism.
Which sort of held that the divine,
you know,
it wasn't located in individual gods,
but rather there were divine forces
within us and the world.
And if you could just align yourself with them,
with the right mindset,
then you would actually achieve
sort of proper peace now
and maybe even union with that divine
when your life expired.
Stoicism wasn't actually far off
from a lot of spirituality today,
when you think about it.
But then in the first century
and into the second century,
there was also Gnosticism,
which was sort of a revamped Platonism.
In Gnosticism,
what matters about humans
is sort of their secret inner core,
that you have a real self,
deep down,
buried down,
that needs to be identified
and allowed to express itself.
And this real self
is often quite different
from your outer person,
your physical person.
And if you can find this inner spark,
this secret inside of you,
then you'll really be connected
to the divine,
to the transcendent.
And you know,
a lot of spirituality today
is highly Gnostic.
We sort of anxiously try
to find our true self
and our physical bodies
give us no indication
of what that might be,
we think.
So what does the Gospel of John
have to tell us
when it comes to this whole
human impulse for spirituality?
Well, John puts the whole question
on a very different footing.
He says in verse 18,
no one has ever seen God.
All of our human attempts
to reach God
or connect with God
or break through to God,
they don't work.
We can't possibly cross the divide
between the finite
and the infinite.
The gap is just too great.
You know the play Hamlet?
It's sort of like imagining
Rosencrans and Guildenstern,
two characters in that play,
searching the castle,
stalking the graveyard,
marching all over Denmark,
trying to find Shakespeare.
No matter how hard they try,
they aren't going to find
the author of the play.
No one has ever seen God,
John says.
Keep looking.
You won't find him.
But what about all of our human impulses
for spirituality?
Is John just paving more concrete
over the wild springs
deep in the human heart?
Ah, keep reading.
No one has ever seen God.
The only God who's at the Father's side,
he has made him known.
Humans cannot reach up to God,
but God can reach down to humans.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
won't ever break outside the play
to find Shakespeare in a pub
in Stratford-on-Avon, right?
But Shakespeare might choose
to write himself
into their world.
And that's what John
is trying to tell us.
The impossible human longing
to see God,
to know God,
the impossible human longing
that bubbles like a spring
under the concrete
of our late modern world
and takes countless shapes and forms
from yoga studios
to mindfulness seminars.
This impossible human longing
has finally actually become possible.
Why?
Not because of anything
you or I have done
or could do,
but only because of what God has done.
God in Jesus has made himself known.
He's written himself into the play.
In fact, the Greek word
that John uses here for make known
at the end of verse 18
and other places in the New Testament
means to tell a narrative
or to narrate.
So we might say that Jesus
is the narration of God.
God speaking his own self,
his own story,
right into ours.
Do you see how this makes Christianity
very different
than other spiritualities?
You know, nearly every other approach
to spirituality says,
if you want to see God,
then you have to make yourself
more like God.
If you want to get in touch
with the transcendent,
here's a set of practices
that will change you
and align you
with that transcendence.
If you want to see God,
well, here's the secret
to become more like God.
Here's the path up.
Here's the path in.
Here's how you,
a finite human,
can get up to the infinite.
But Christianity is very different.
This spirituality says,
not humans must become God,
but God has become a human.
God has become a human
and made himself known.
And for John,
that means two things.
First, it means that in Jesus
we can see God's glory.
And second, it means that in Jesus
we can receive God's grace.
So let's look at the first of those.
We can see God's glory.
Look again at verses 14 and 15.
And the word became flesh
and dwelt among us
and we have seen his glory.
Glory as of the only son
from the father,
full of grace and truth.
John bore witness about him
and cried out,
this was he of whom I said,
he who comes after me
ranks before me
because he was before me.
We've seen his glory.
Isn't that what so many spiritualities
are trying to get at?
A sort of glimpse of glory,
of transcendence,
of infinite,
of awe and wonder and holiness.
John says, here it is.
In the word,
Jesus, the only son
from the father
who became flesh
and dwelt among us.
Of course, in one sense,
this is what the whole Bible's about.
Remember all the way back
in Genesis chapter one,
God creates the world.
In six days,
he sort of sets up the form, right?
And then in six creation days,
he sort of fills it out.
And then on the seventh day,
what happens?
Well, the writer of Genesis says,
God rests.
But you know,
that doesn't mean that God took a break
because he was tired, right?
It wasn't as if six days of work
was really rough.
You know,
you and I work five days
and we get kind of worn out.
We need a two-day weekend.
God can work six,
but he still needs one day off, right?
That's not what Genesis is saying.
The resting on the seventh day
is not the rest of a weary laborer,
but the resting of a king on his throne.
All of creation in Genesis one
is built like a temple for the living God,
the place where his glory rests.
From the very beginning,
God intended to dwell with his creation,
with his people.
But as the story goes,
the first humans disobeyed their king.
They disobeyed God
and they were driven out
from God's presence in the garden.
The dwelling place seemed to be lost.
But then as the story continues,
God reestablishes his dwelling place.
He redeems his people from slavery in Egypt
and he tells them to do what?
He tells them to build a tabernacle,
build a tent in the wilderness.
And this tabernacle would be the place
where God again begins to dwell
in the midst of his people.
They lived in tents,
so God would come
and dwell in their midst in a tent.
And then after God establishes them
in the promised land,
he allows them to build a temple.
Because after all,
the people now live in houses,
so God will dwell in their midst in a house.
And the tabernacle and the temple
would be the place,
it would be the center
of the spirituality of God's people.
Here is where God's glory would reside,
right in their midst.
Here is where the infinite
would touch the finite.
Here is where transcendence
and holiness would come into contact
with the material and the mundane.
This is where God would rest.
This is where God would dwell.
And in both instances,
when the tabernacle was first raised
and the temple first constructed,
we are told that God's holy glory
comes down and fills it.
But you know,
the tabernacle and the temple,
these were just signposts.
They were just preliminary sketches.
God had something greater in store.
Because when the fullness of time had come,
the word became flesh
and dwelt among us.
And the word dwelt that John uses there
is the same word
for pitching a tent,
for a tabernacle.
John is very deliberately saying
that the true tabernacle,
the true temple,
is finally here.
God's no longer dwelling in a tent
or in a temple.
God became flesh
so that humans might know his glory at last.
God has become human.
In Jesus Christ,
we see God's glory.
That was the message of John the Baptist,
Jesus' forerunner.
He who comes after me ranks before me
because he was before me.
According to John the Baptist,
Jesus has the preeminence,
the glory.
John saw it and testified to it,
the gospel writer John says
about John the Baptist.
But how about you and me?
Do we see it?
Do we see God's glory
in the incarnate become flesh word,
Jesus?
Many choose not to.
After all,
I mean,
isn't God's glory
supposed to be powerful
and overwhelming?
Shouldn't it be huge
and gilded
and shining
like the walls of the temple?
But Jesus,
look at him.
born to an insignificant family
in an insignificant part of Israel,
living an insignificant life
for 30 years.
Goodness gracious,
he dies hung up
on a Roman cross
like the trash of the earth.
There's no glory there.
Where's the power?
Where's the shock and awe?
But what sort of glory
were you looking for?
The real glory of God,
the true God,
the God who makes himself
known in Jesus,
it isn't that sort of glory.
You want celebrity,
fame,
money,
power,
that's not real glory.
Real glory,
God's glory,
is right here.
in Jesus,
John says,
full of grace
and truth.
That's what God
ultimately wanted us to see.
And that's what he had been
telling his people
for centuries actually.
Do you remember
when Moses said to God
in Exodus,
God, show me your glory.
What did God do?
Well, God knew
that if sinful Moses
really saw God
and his holiness,
Moses would be undone.
Just like Isaiah's
vision in the temple.
Do you remember that?
Isaiah has this prophetic vision
where he sort of sees
just the hem
of God's robe,
sort of like the edge
of the outermost piece
of his clothing.
And what happens?
He sees the edge
of God's robe
and Isaiah cries out,
woe is me!
I'm undone!
My very being
is shaken to the core
and I'm in pieces.
I'm uncreated
by the holiness of God.
So how is God
going to show Moses
his glory?
Well, God says,
Moses, hide here.
Hide in the cleft
of this rock
and I'll cover you
and then I'll pass by
and you won't see my face.
You'll see my back actually.
That is, you'll see
the kind of after effects,
the echo
of my passing by
and then I'll declare
to you my name
and my glory.
And God does just that.
Exodus 34, 6 says,
The Lord passed before him
and proclaimed,
The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger
and abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness.
Abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness,
full of grace
and truth.
That's God's glory.
And it comes to its climax
in Jesus Christ.
Because in the incarnation,
God proves his faithfulness
to all of his promises.
And in the incarnation,
God demonstrates
his steadfast love,
his grace.
In the incarnation,
God completes his plan
promised all the way
back in Genesis
when the first human couple fell
and when God promised
on that day
that one day
a child would come.
One day the child
would come
to crush the head
of the serpent,
to defeat sin and evil.
But in the crushing,
the child would be crushed.
Look again at the tabernacle.
Look again at the temple.
What do you see there?
Day after day,
month after month,
week after week.
What do you see happening
at the tabernacle,
at the temple?
The temple.
Sacrifices.
After all,
how could this holy God,
this almighty creator,
dwell in the midst
of a sinful people?
Would it not surely
mean their death,
their undoing?
Surely his unimaginable holiness,
wouldn't it,
would it not just simply
crush them under its weight?
This last summer,
my family,
we made a trip
to Niagara Falls.
I don't know
if any of you
have been to Niagara Falls,
but it's just massive.
And the just weight
of the water
pouring down.
You can't really feel it
until you're there.
And we were there
and we went on this thing
called I think
the hurricane deck
or something like that
where you sort of
can climb out on this deck
and you're sort of
next to the water
pouring down
and it's spraying off of you
and it hurts.
But it's like the bouncing
of it that hurts, right?
Not the full weight of it.
And honestly,
it's very troubling
being that close
to Niagara Falls
because you think,
one slip
and we're done for.
And if that's true
of a mere waterfall,
friends,
what about the holy God
who made waterfalls
and mountains
and stars
and universes?
Could sinful people
dwell with a God
like that?
So God gives them sacrifices
and so the sacrifice dies
so the people don't have to.
God allows a substitution
to be made.
But you know,
the sacrifices
at the tabernacle
and at the temple,
again,
they were just signposts.
It wasn't going to be
bulls and goats,
but the word made flesh
full of grace
and truth,
full of steadfast love
and faithfulness,
true to his promise.
God himself
would bear the curse
and the crushing weight
of sin.
And that would be
the full display
of God's glory.
According to the Gospel
of John,
where do we see
the glory of God?
It's the glory
of the cross.
The Holy One
would stand
in the place
of the sinner
and the sinner's debt
would be paid.
And that's why
John goes on to say,
for from his fullness
we have all received
grace upon grace.
For the law
was given through Moses,
grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ.
So John's saying,
look,
we don't just see
God's glory
in the incarnate
word Jesus,
but we receive
his grace.
We receive it.
I mean,
think about it.
What is it
that we're really
looking for
in what we call
spirituality?
There might be
a lot of reasons
why people go after
what they think of
as something spiritual.
You know,
it might be a desire
for awe.
It might be a desire
for control,
trying to get
some kind of control
around yourself
or your surroundings.
It might be a desire
for meaning.
To make sense
of life.
But I think
deep down,
isn't what we're
looking for,
isn't what we really
want,
isn't it to be
known
and to be loved?
John says,
we've been given
grace upon grace.
One grace
in place of another.
What was the first grace?
He says,
the law was given
through Moses.
The law is a great gift.
Why?
Because when you look
into the law,
you see yourself.
You see yourself
without any hiding
and without any pretense.
God's perfect law
comes and God says,
I know you
fully.
All of you.
All your virtues
and your vices.
I know you.
Everything that makes you
lovely and everything
that makes you ashamed.
All your triumphs
and all your failures.
All your flaws
and all your sins.
God says,
I know them all.
But is that where it ends?
No,
there comes a second gift
in place of the first.
The law came through Moses.
Grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ.
God knows you fully
and
he loves you completely.
So much so
that what he requires
of you,
what God requires
of you in the law,
God provides for you
in his son.
That's why it's grace
and truth.
There's no one
who knows you better
than Jesus Christ.
He is the God,
the one through whom
all things,
you included,
were created.
And he became flesh
and lived
in this very humanity
that is ours.
No one knows you
better than him.
And still,
he chose to love you
and lay down
his life for you.
No one knows you
better than Jesus
and no one loves you
better than him.
From his fullness
we've received
grace
upon grace.
So where does this
leave us?
Well,
if it is true
that no one
has ever seen God
but the only God,
Jesus,
the Son,
who's at the Father's side
has made him known,
if that's true,
well,
then the application
seems clear.
The only true
and real spirituality
is the one
focused
and centered
utterly
on Jesus Christ.
the bubbling
streams
of human
spirituality
that keep
breaking
through the concrete
are meant
to flow
to him
and to him
alone.
So friends,
what will you do
this week
to draw near
to him
because he
has drawn
so near
to you?
Perhaps
it means
entrusting
your life
to him,
placing your
trust in him
for the first
time
and becoming
a follower
of this Jesus.
perhaps
if you've
already done
that,
it means
taking a step
to get baptized,
to make a public
profession
of faith
in him,
to identify
with him
and his people.
Perhaps
it means
spending a few
moments
in the morning
before the day
begins
to just be
still before him,
to put yourself
not in a posture
of doing
but of receiving
and simply
receiving
his grace
upon grace
for you.
Perhaps
it means
rethinking
what kind
of glory
you've been
living for
because what
we see
in the
incarnate
word
is that
God's glory
isn't found
in power
but in service.
God's glory
isn't found
in celebrity
but in humility
and in honesty.
it's not found
in wealth
but in
self-giving
generosity.
That's the sort
of glory
God wants
to work
in you
through his
spirit.
So where
is the incarnate
and risen
Christ,
the word
made flesh
inviting you
to behold
his glory
and in
beholding
him to
become less
like the world
and more
like him?
That's real
spirituality.
That's the
real wellspring.
That's the
water we're
all longing
to drink
no matter
how much
concrete
we try
to pave
over it.
Let's pray
together.
Our Father
in heaven
by your
Holy Spirit
would you
enlighten
the eyes
of our
hearts
that we
might
behold
Jesus
the
word
made
flesh
crucified
risen
and
reigning.
Lord
help us
through the
power of
your spirit
to behold
his glory
and to
receive his
grace.
We pray
this in
his name.
Amen.