Seasons Greetings

Exeter Temple Message notes:  Sunday 14^th December 2014
Bible Readings:  John 1:1-12 & Hebrews 1: 1-6
At Christmas most of us try to express our sentiments of goodwill towards others through an appropriate greeting such as Happy or Merry Christmas or something more original. 
In Jesus, God sends us his greetings, his expression of his heart of goodwill towards the world that he has made.
1. The Mind of God
John calls Jesus, the word of God. “In the beginning was the word and the word became flesh and dwelt among us”.  (John 1:1)
Words are expressions of otherwise hidden thought. Whether they are communicated through speech or through actions or through writing words are important.
“Words are thoughts become freely available.” (Anon)
Ancient thinkers believed that there was a great mind behind the universe. The Greeks called it Logos and the Chinese, Tao. Both words mean reason.  None of them could explain clearly what this great thought or reason is. They felt it was either unknowable or only known to the great or very wise. Many longed to know more of this mind which they recognised was more than a great power, but also a personality they wanted to call God. They wanted a clue that would give them a word that would make the mind of God known to them.
“I want to know what God’s thoughts are, the rest are only details.” (Einstein)
God has had many questions thrown at Him.
Abraham sensed that God was a real person and wanted to know,
“What’s your name?”
Moses faced with the leadership of the Hebrew people asked.
“What shall I do with these people?”
Job faced with bereavement, ill health and disaster wanted reasons from
God, “What have I done to deserve this?”
And God did answer their questions. God has always been a God of revelation.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20 
But nature was not a perfect revelation. It tells us much of the creative genius of God but not of his attitude towards all he has made. So God also revealed himself through prophets and teachers.
How does the thought, the mind of God which is on a totally different plane to ours, become accessible to us?
The writer of the gospel of John was familiar with Greek philosophy and Jewish teaching.  He also had an extraordinary relationship with Jesus and came to the conclusion that he was the answer to the communication problem. Jesus was the key, the word people were looking for.
Jesus could make God known because He was God. Jesus could explain the great mind behind the universe, because He was it. 
So John introduces us to Jesus, as the Logos, the word of God made flesh.
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”  (Hebrews 1:1)
This expression of God that is Jesus can be trust because he is the true light. (v9)
The Greek word here means true as opposed to fake or imitation. Before Jesus there had been other lights which people had followed. Some had been good and had given insight into truth but some had been false and had been no lights at all. When we say that Jesus is the true word of God we do not mean that He is an interpretation of God. Jesus is not just an illustration of God. He is God and so He can shed the real light of truth.  
We can get to know God. He is not distant, so mysterious that is He unknowable. God has spoken. He sent his Son so that people like you and I can know Him first hand. God has spoken. He has told us how to approach Him. And that is through putting our faith in Jesus.
We often make assumptions about what people want and we can do that with God.  People sometimes say God is happy with people being as long as they express their spirituality somehow and that God will be pleased if people simply try to live decently, meditate on a crystal, practice fasting or talk to their spirit guide.
Even as Christians sometimes we say to God, “Here is my idea of what you want. Here is my version of how to live for you”. Yet God is not silent about what He wants. He has spoken. God expresses Himself in Jesus Christ.
2. The Love of God and the worth of man
God was expressing Himself in the best way he could when He sent His Son as a baby.
Sometimes the Christian message is preached along the lines of, “This world was in a desperate situation and desperate situations need desperate measures so God sent Jesus.” It’s almost as if they are saying, Jesus will just have to do.
The coming of Jesus is not a last resort or an afterthought?
Jesus has always been God’s first and best choice.  
3. A message of hope
Sometimes Christianity is accused of putting mankind down and focussing on human weakness rather than on our strengths.  However the fact is that the Bible tells us we are sinners which gives our humanity hope.
One of the things Jesus’ coming to earth has done is to show us that we are not what we are meant to be. God has a higher purpose for us than we imagine for ourselves or what we think is possible for man.
The ultimate honour God can bestow on us is to take our human nature and become one of us. God dignifies our flesh and blood by wearing it as His own. He didn’t simply take possession of man as the devil sometimes does of people. He became fully human. And He did so without sin.
And that tells us something more. In Jesus we see humanity without sin and that shows us that sin is something foreign to our humanity. We tend to think that the jealousy, the lying, the gossiping and greed are just part of being human. It is as if we are saying sometimes that what God made us was not that good really. But Jesus’ coming tells us that it is not true. Jesus’ coming expresses the amazing love of God for us and also the amazing hope there is for us.
Our sin makes us less than human. It is a foreign object, a disease that has seeped into human nature and polluted it.  
Jesus’ coming, the word made flesh communicates and changes things.  Jesus did not just come as an advert for God but came to give His life to heal us of sins disease and to restore us to be creatures made in the likeness of God.   
John shows us that when we know Jesus, God’s word - then it opens up for us a whole range of possibilities.
“To those who believed in his name he gave them the right to become children of God”.  (John 1:12)
“From the fullness of his grace we receive one blessing after another.”
(John 1:16)
“Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)
John summarises those possibilities in verse 4, “In Him was life and that life was the light of men”. There is both revelation and redemption in this word made flesh. 
Over this Christmas people will spend a lot of time talking about stuff that does not really matter. In the midst of it all God has spoken through His Son and the simple message he wants us to hear is that this amazing expression of light and love is for you.

Blessings
Alan and Carol