Isn’t that a wonderful passage? It’s my favourite in the whole bible and it’s been described as the greatest adventure of religious thought. And I hope no-one is hoping to get home for lunch today because to do it justice I have to speak for at least three and a half hours!

But if not that, when maybe we should at least spend a while looking at three of the verses that I picked out:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God

Have you ever tried to tell someone about something and they just don’t understand:

don’t understand what you’re talking about

In our family that one is usually me. The family discuss various things – various celebrities perhaps in the pop world, in the films, fashion and I haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. I just don’t understand, and they give me that rather sort of pitying look: ‘Poor old soul, he’s just not in touch, you know’.

Some people are said to be “with it”. I’m definitely “without it”.

But imagine John. He’s about to write a gospel about the life of Jesus. And by this time there are many, many more Christians who’ve come from a Gentile background than a Jewish background. We’re not talking about one or two times, we’re talking about maybe hundreds of times more people from a Gentile background than from a Jewish background.

Now in Matthew’s gospel, Matthew talks about Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophesy, about the coming of the Messiah. The Gentiles just wouldn’t know what they are talking about:

Who was the Messiah? What was he? We just don’t understand.

It’s a Jewish prophecy and Gentiles wouldn’t know anything about it. They had no knowledge about what a Messiah was. So John looks about for a word he can use which they will understand. A word which will also be understood by the Jews. And he chooses the word ‘Word’.

To the Jews a ‘Word’ was, in a sense, an independent existence. It was as if it was a unit of energy of its own. So once it had been spoken, it couldn’t be taken back couldn’t be retracted.

Do you remember Isaac was asked to give a blessing to Esau. But through deceit he gives the blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. Esau returns from the fields, finds that his father has blessed his brother and he’s furious. He goes to Isaac and he says

Take back that blessing. It was given by mistake anyway. Give that blessing to me!

But Isaac replies

I can’t. Once the blessing has been given, once the Word has been spoken, it can’t be withdrawn.

So the Jews would understand that ‘Word’ had something about it that was almost tangible; and the Greeks, who for centuries had talked about Logos being the word or reason of God, the principle of order under which the universe existed, would have seen the connection with the creative directive power of God.

So John is saying to both Jew and Gentile alike, this thing, this force of God became flesh and dwelt among us. As it were, the very mind of God became a person. And they both would have had an inkling and been able to accept what he was talking about. I doubt whether they understood it, but it was something that was tangible, something that was real both of them.

The next verse I want to mention is

To all those who did receive Him, to those who believed in His Name he gave the right to become Children of God.

We think of ourselves as God’s Children. Here there is a sense in which man is not naturally a ‘Child of God’, but has to become a ‘Child of God’.

If we think of this in human terms … Imagine a father having two sons: one takes everything he is given, from the home, from his parents, and he gives nothing back, it’s as if it’s a right that he should receive it, and there’s no reason for him to return anything that he has received, and gradually as he grows up he goes about his own employment he drifts away from the family, they drift apart; but the second son recognises all that has been provided for him, all that his parents, his home has given him, and he takes the opportunity to show his gratitude and as the years go by he draws closer and closer to his father.

It is this recognition of what Jesus is all about that opens to each one of us the possibility of becoming Children of God.

The third verse is

As the Word of God become Flesh and lived among us we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth.

The way John used the word seeing is used about twenty times in the New Testament. It doesn’t mean seeing as in understanding. It doesn’t mean a sort of spiritual seeing or a mental seeing. It means actual physical sight. This was a shattering revelation to the people that John was writing to. Imagine him saying

This part of God has come into the world and became flesh. He became a man, and I have actually seen him with my own eyes.

That is an incredible thing for anyone to take in, particularly the Gentiles (that’s the you’s and me’s of this world) because the Jews spoke of God coming into the world. But to the Greeks particularly, the fact that God could and would become a human person and enter this life, was not something that had ever been part of their belief structure. Even some of the church couldn’t believe it!

I sometimes wonder whether that situation has changed very much.

So the Word of God became a person and took up his abode in each one of us, in our being, full of grace and truth. The word ‘grace’ emphasises the helpless poverty of man. It also emphasises the limitless kindness of God: for grace is a relationship that God offers.

If we wanted a relationship with, say, the Queen, we cannot approach her and say ‘Lizzie, let’s be friends’. You can imagine the sort of reaction. If there is to be a relationship between the Queen and ourselves it has got to come from her.

In a much bigger way the approach must come from God. And it does. That is what he has done. He has offered us this relationship, this very special relationship with Him. Secondly, He was the embodiment of truth, he said to the disciples

if they are to continue with Him they would know the truth.

Do you remember when he has questioned by Pilate, Jesus replied that he had come to witness to the truth. When he was leaving the disciples he told them that he would leave his spirit to guide them into the way of truth. So truth is an understanding, if I can rather oversimplify it, an understanding into the meaning of God. It is known with the mind, it is accepted with the heart, and is acted out in life.

So this passage that we heard today is the embodiment of the Christian faith, said in a clear and concise way, and the three verses that I’ve picked out are part of the most important elements of that passage. John is saying to Jew and Gentile alike ‘this is a faith for all people’, people like us. Not just for information, but to be acted upon, to draw us closer to God as children of God, to react to his invitation to receive his Grace and to come into a closer relationship with Him, and to have a greater understanding of his truth, acted out in life by each one of us.

Now we all might say that we know all this, you’re just repeating what we’ve already heard so many times and we have this relationship, but I say to you, this passage asks a question to each one of us

Could we do more to become closer to God?

And each of us have to answer that question for ourselves.