Over the past few days, I’ve read the wonderful opening words of chapter 1 of St John's Gospel at about six Christmas services, four in this group of parishes, two elsewhere. And I’ve heard them read at one or two others. I like to read aloud from scripture, it’s something I tend do that even when I say morning or evening prayer on my own; and together with some of the Psalms and 1 Corinthians 13, the opening verses of St John's Gospel are among my favourites. I use modern translations of scripture most of the time, but not when I read from John chapter 1. In my view the modern translations don’t have the poetic majesty of the more traditional versions.
I don’t get to read that passage today, sadly; but we have heard the beginning of John's First Letter, which takes the same theme: the Word of God, by which the universe was created, has come to be with us in human form, and in this event the light of God's love is kindled among us. John wrote this letter towards the end of his long life, and you can think of Jesus “the Word of God made flesh” as John’s Great Idea. But it's an idea based in personal encounter. John writes as a witness, a man who walked with Jesus, heard him speak and shared with him moments of great spiritual intensity; a man who was also there to see him die.
John's Gospel differs a lot from the other three: it's an eye-witness account, but it’s also deeper, more complex, more reflective. It’s not as easy a read as Mark or Luke. John’s words stress the divinity of Jesus, but not at the expense of the humanity of Jesus. That’s a difficult balance. In Jesus the divine Word of God is present here among us, and John shows Jesus as aware of his divine nature in a way we don’t find so clearly stated in the other Gospels: but the Word is made flesh in Jesus the man, and this man is also presented by John as completely and fully like us. Now as it happens John wrote at a time when a dangerous heresy had arisen that John and others must have feared could distort the faith they preached, and do damage to the young Christian Church.
There were people around called Gnostics. The word Gnostic comes from the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis), a word used here to mean arcane and secret knowledge. The Gnostics believed and taught that the most important thing in faith was to acquire ever deeper levels of secret knowledge. As you learned more of these secrets, you moved up in the hierarchy of faith, and you gained spiritual power. John was anxious to counter and condemn this: this seeking after esoteric knowledge for its own sake, and as a means of attaining power, was completely opposed to the things Jesus taught, and the way Jesus lived. True faith isn’t about getting power and secret knowledge, true faith is growing to be like Jesus - and the marks of true faith are seen in acts of compassion, healing and renewal, in those things that are the fruit of love.
So that's why John wrote the things he wrote nearly two thousand years ago. As we read his words now, how different is the world around us, I wonder? It seems to me that people still have spiritual questions and spiritual hunger. I see this in all kinds of people, and in both old and young: people with an interest in spiritual things, people asking spiritual questions about the meaning of life. But one thing I also see is that not many of them are looking to the Christian faith for answers or directions.
So when I was in a big bookshop in Shrewsbury the other day looking for Christmas presents, and I found myself looking at a section labelled “Spirituality”, I wasn’t entirely surprised that hardly anything there was Christian in origin. Some did seem to come from other religious traditions, but most were more broadly ‘new age’. The common factor, so far as I could see, was that they were all self-help manuals, by which I mean their subject matter was mostly about how to take control of your own life and self. They seemed on the whole to be self-centred and morally neutral. There was very little about using spirituality in ways that might benefit others. We live in an increasingly pick and mix society, and spirituality has become just one more pick and mix commodity.
As I looked along the shelves, I found I could choose from Celtic savants or from Indian maharishis, from pagan mythology or native American insights. And I’m not sure that’s all that different from the world in which John was writing. There was an element of pick-and mix about the spirituality of that time too: many different philosophies to follow, and temples at which to worship.
So John writes to proclaim the true faith in the face of a multiplicity of traditions and ideas and cults in the world around him. I find the boldness of his writing attractive, inspiring and instructive. Of course he found the truth he teaches not in a set of ideas but in a man, the man he knew and followed, Jesus of Nazareth. As I read I'm reminded how weak and listless I can be when it comes to expressing or sharing my faith. Shouldn’t I dare to speak out more boldly? How sincerely do I believe that Jesus is truth not only for my own life but for the world? Here is a truth to set me free from fear, to set me free to love and serve, so why am I holding back on that?
John’s own letter begins, as we heard this morning, with a setting out of his credentials. He tells us why he has a right to be heard, that he writes as a witness, he was there. Then comes that great theme of light and darkness, and the Word become flesh in Christ who is the creative Word of God. In Genesis chapter 1 God speaks and things are made, and the very first thing made is light, and then the light is separated from the darkness. And John goes on to write that God is light, and that in God there is no darkness.
Those who know God then should be people of light; we choose the light and turn away from the darkness. For John darkness stands for ignorance, chaos, immorality, apathy and a lack of love. Darkness stands for a life that is Christless, life that fails to recognise in Christ the example he sets for us, the challenge he lays before us, and the call he gives us.
So for me as I stand on the edge of another new year, there’s a challenge in what John says. If I claim to share God's life when in fact I really prefer the darkness, then I’m living a lie. John found many examples in the world around him of people claiming to be spiritually mature, who were in fact completely self-absorbed, self-centred. There was no Christ in their lives. Is that me?
We need to test ourselves. Spiritual growth rooted in Christ will find its proof in acts of love and care, of compassion and healing that reflect the human example he sets us. This is how we prove that we’ve taken him to heart. A true disciple is one who lives what he says he believes. John the evangelist shows us the man who is much more than just a teacher, much more than a purveyor of knowledge. For Jesus is himself the message he preaches: in all he does and says he is light for the world. In him we see the Word made flesh among us, the light of creation kindled afresh in a human life that says, “Come, follow, take me to heart, imitate my love.”
May that Word be alive in his Church as we look to the year ahead with its opportunities and its uncertainties. May that Word be alive in us as we take seriously our Lord’s call to mission, to a mission expressed in service and sacrifice. In this way may we share light within his family and transmit it to the world, a light that shines in acts of compassion and love.
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