Friday 20th October - John 1

Today’s chapter is John 1

Tom writes:

A jumbo jet has landed in my garden. It has wrecked the house and the fuselage has squashed the garage. The roar of the engines still pops in my ears. I had felt pretty stretched and challenged by the 3 Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) but then, out of nowhere, the hulking monstrosity that is John has just been thrust on me from above. And that is what Holy Spirit intended. John lived late into the establishment of the early church. The “disciple who Jesus loved” played grandfather to the swelling ranks of Jesus-followers, and he rapped his gnarled knuckles on the table of awe. Awe at Jesus and love of brother. Perhaps the newer, younger believers had become a little too familiar with Jesus. The inevitable dilution of wonder had gone just a little too far for the apostle to stay schtum. And so the old boy clears his throat, girds up his loins and unleashes heaven. “In the beginning was the WORD”. Forget your birth. Forget this universe. There is one in our midst who preceded it all. “Through HIM ALL THINGS were made.”  Talk about expanding our horizons. Talk about invading our small preoccupations with a hulking beast of an idea.

The challenge in John is to read it slow enough to let the Spirit penetrate our souls with the tiniest increment of these enormous, explosive truths. Awe. It’s a rare commodity in any immature church. We need to slow down to catch it. And yet, while stretching towards awe we must also see that the baggage of this jumbo jet was carrying was an abundance of grace. Grace that leads to love. God is so great we must fear him and God is so loving that we must befriend him. The old man John champions a life lived in this tension. The angels of God descended to earth as well as ascended.  Jesus didn’t just pass by John’s two disciples but asked them to “Come and see”.  Jesus didn’t just leave for Galilee but he found Philip and asked him if he wanted to turn it into a road trip. The awesome Son of God, the everlasting, all creating one was here… and he was completely obsessed with spending time with people, with drawing into intimacy with his creation. The church’s recent obsession has been sung worship, and quite rightly so. But Jesus coupled worship with relationships that went beyond a quick coffee after church. And so, if we truly have had this jumbo jet land in our garden, if we truly let Old Man John speak the Word into our hearts then we will become people who worship our socks off, and then go find our neighbours socks and wash the feet that were wearing them.

Question for reflection

Has a jumbo jet of awe landed in your garden?