1 John 1:1-4
How many of you have at
least one sibling, whether living or dead (or estranged or close)? What does it
mean to have a sibling or a close friend? That person becomes part of how you
remember events, people, and places in your life. You compare notes, repeat the
stories, and recall facts that the other person forgets. Having a close
relationship with someone else, especially a brother or sister or close cousin,
is the way that you make sense of history and your place in it.
When
a community formed around the teaching and understanding of the apostle John,
the writer of the Fourth Gospel lifted up the divinity of Jesus. In that
gospel, Jesus’ feet are just a little bit above the ground. The theme of the
gospel according to John is “Like Father, like Son.” When we read that book, we
cannot fail to grasp that Jesus is divine, is of God, is specifically and necessarily revealing God the Father to us.
This
was the prevailing understanding of the Johnannine community, the brothers and
sisters who came together around John’s understanding of Jesus. However, when
Jesus’ divinity becomes the main focus, what is lost? We miss out on the
crucial other part of the
incarnation, God becoming enfleshed,… Jesus’ humanity.
Why
does Jesus’ humanity matter? The less human Jesus becomes in our recollection,
the less we feel able or compelled to imitate him. It is very easy to think of
the divine Jesus as our Savior and Lord. That begins to move him over there, while we remain here. The further we feel from divinity
ourselves, the tougher it is to believe that 1) salvation has actually been
achieved, 2) what has been achieved is at work in us, changing us, and 3) that
we are called and equipped for exactly the same kind of work for the sake of
the world around us.
The
writer of 1 John, sometimes called the elder or an elder of the church,
understood the significance of lifting up both Jesus’ divinity AND his
humanity. Paying equal attention to Jesus as a man, as someone we could know,
as a person who got scraped, had his feelings hurt, got tired and hungry, and
needed to go to the bathroom, who became frustrated, who hugged children…
remembering all of that as having equal importance to his eternal existence as
the Word of life and love is valuable and imperative.
It
was because of people’s physical experiences of Jesus that they came to
understand him as Emmanuel- God with us. It
was because of people’s physical experiences of Jesus that they came to
understand him as the Son of God. It is what they saw, heard, tasted,
smelled, touched, and otherwise experienced that the Holy Spirit used to open
their minds and hearts to this physical revelation of God’s own self.
After
the ascension, Christ’s presence was encountered differently. His presence was
made real in the recounting of his deeds, sharing of his teaching, marveling at
the healings, and living as he had commanded- loving God and neighbor. The
elder writer of 1 John wants his hearers, including us, to understand that the
humanity of Jesus, as well as his divinity, was part of God’s work to make a
holy community, the followers of the way of Jesus, brothers and sisters bonded
in a new way.
The
word in 1 John is koinonia. This word
originates from the Greek word koinos,
meaning “common.” When this word is used in the New Testament, it is typically
translated as sharing, fellowship, or partnership. Koinonia means a special joint partnership, a unique fellowship, a
creative community that shares one story. The story of Jesus, human and divine,
makes us brothers and sisters. It shapes us as a koinonia, a unique kind of fellowship, in which we all share our
stories, our experiences of Jesus in our lives and in the world. We share and
carry the history together, the history of the church, of this church, of
creation, of miracles, joys, and griefs.
According
to 1 John, this is the purpose of Jesus’ humanity- to bring us into this
special kind of relationship with each other and God. We are not yet there, meaning whatever comes next. We
are here now, as Jesus was and as
Christ is. This means, brothers and sisters, that we are still at work and God
remains at work in us. It means that our story-telling, our memory making, our
shared laughter, tears, and labors are still on-going.
The
real person of Jesus, the story of his life, death, and resurrection, created koinonia, a community with shared story
and purpose. The real presence of Christ makes that koinonia real here, in this time and place. We may not always agree
as brothers and sisters. Our memories may differ. Our sense of what should be
next may differ. However, we cannot actually disagree or undo what is of
central importance, we have been made a family in Christ, a special and holy community
with a shared sense of responsibility for one another, for this property, for
Anchorage, and for all creation.
We
are never on our own in Christ. We die and are raised to new life in him
through his story, as it has been carried through the family since the early
days of the church. With the help of the Spirit, Our task now is to keep the
community and the story alive, to share with one another (and the world) what
we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and
touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. Amen.
Comments