God Moved Into The Neighborhood 2
Text: John 1:1-18
Preached by Pastor Phil Hughes at Mount Olympus Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City, Utah,
December 10, 2023 Second Sunday of Advent
During these Sundays of Advent I am preaching from John 1 which is a passage about the coming of Jesus. John doesn’t say anything about Mary and Joseph and Away in A Manger. But he is telling the story of the coming of Christ.
Any Bible reader who hears, “In the beginning…” would think of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” John begins his Gospel with these exact words because he wants us to see the story of the Creator acting in a new way. This new way is by entering his very creation in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God. It is the story that began in Genesis and reaches its climax when Jesus arrives.[1]
In the Old Testament God acts by his “word.” Psalm 33:6: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.” Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
And John calls Jesus Christ, the Son of God, “the Word.” He is the Word God has spoken to us. He is the voice of God who came from God, was with God, and was God himself. You see Jesus you see God. You hear Jesus you hear God.
He is called the Word because he is God speaking to us, expressing his mind and heart about him, about us, and his deep love for us. This Word is Jesus Christ, God’s unique, and one and only Son.
Perhaps the most important verse in this passage is v. 14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (Some Bibles read “lived for a while among us.” One translation reads, “The Word became flesh and took up residence.” And yet another says, “made his home with us.” )
The title for this sermon series comes from how verse v. 14 reads in The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. The Message is not a study Bible. It is a reading Bible. It tries to make the Bible as readable as possible, bringing out the spirit and ideas behind the words in new and fresh ways so that anyone of any education level can read it. And the way that John 1:14 reads in The Message is “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” God moved into the neighborhood.
That’s a poignant picture of how God came to us in Jesus Christ. When you move into a neighborhood you become part of a place. You become part of the area. God moved into the neighborhood and became part of this place called earth and human existence.
God moved into a human body, and into the human condition, and into this world, to rub shoulders with us in every way. He got close to us.
We don’t have the closeness with our neighbors that many areas of the world do today. With our gated communities, large yards and lots, fences and larger homes, neighborhoods often are impersonal. We prefer distance and privacy now. People pay big money to have distance. But there are still many places where neighborhoods are really communities.
When Nancy and I were first married we lived in the inner city of Philadelphia for several years where you live in close conditions with your neighbors. Though Irish, Italians and Germans had settled the neighborhood the area in which we lived was becoming more and more Polish as immigrants from Poland were moving in after the break up of the Soviet Union in the 90’s.
Many east coast cities are built house up against house, wall to wall, back yard to back yard. There isn’t any distance. You saw your neighbors, heard your neighbors, and got a sense for your neighbors for good or for bad.
Theresa lived next door with her little dog and ran a Hallmark card shop on the bottom floor of her three-story row house. The Coia family, with mom and dad and four children, lived on the other side of us. We could hear the conversations through our walls as the family shouted to each other from one floor to the next in the three-level house. For that matter, the walls between the houses were so thin we could hear phones ring and televisions going and might have been able to eavesdrop if we really wanted to.
We lived on the second and third floors of our building. On the first floor was a sports memorabilia shop run by two brothers. We got a sense for them from the smell of marijuana that would waft up through the vents into our apartment.
We lived on a major avenue so there were people all day and night long. We came upon our neighbors and talked with them often. And we knew things about them just by observing and listening. People would sit out on their front step or the sidewalk on the hot summer nights.
There was the bar across the street, the bakery a few doors down, and the park down on the corner. When we moved in we became a part of this neighborhood. And we became part of the events that happened. And we became known.
At Christmas we celebrate that God became a human being and moved into the human neighborhood.
When John writes that Jesus “dwelled” or “lived among us” the word actually means “tabernacled” or “tented”. “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” is what John really wrote. And it has deep biblical overtones.
When Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years the LORD instructed Moses to erect a tabernacle, also known as the Tent of Meeting, wherever they went. Obviously, it was portable since Israel was often on the move. Whenever they stopped the tabernacle would be put up. Whenever the LORD told them to move the tabernacle was taken down.
The tabernacle was where Moses would go to meet the LORD. It was where he prayed. It was where the ark of the covenant, which held the Ten Commandments, was kept.
At the end of the book of Exodus after a description of the building of the tabernacle is presented, we read that the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. The presence of the LORD dwelt in the tabernacle.
This large tent, if you would, was where the LORD touched down in the middle of the people of Israel. It was how and where he was with them.
When John writes that the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, he is drawing a direct line to the tabernacle for Israel. Just as the LORD’s presence and glory was in the middle of wherever Israel camped, so that same presence and glory came in human form and set up shop on this earth in the person of Jesus Christ.
It is why John goes on to say about Jesus, “We have seen his glory…” He is making a direct parallel to the glory of the Tent of Meeting in Exodus. Jesus came and camped out on this earth. He set up his tent. God camped with us.
Although tents are being replaced more and more by motor homes and campers, still, when you set up at a campground, you tend to be in close quarters. You immediately enter into a community where space, air, sometimes even resources, are shared.
Things are close. You can’t hide. God came close in Jesus. And he came to be known. He didn’t came in a space ship from beyond time and space, and plop down here. He came like we all do, through the womb of a woman.
He didn’t live in a separate castle or tower apart from everyone else in Palestine. He actually lived a very ordinary life as a carpenter, with ordinary people, and even in poverty.
He didn’t come as a religious figure. He wasn’t a priest, nor did he have a formal role in the temple or in Judaism. In fact, his most sharp words and criticisms were for the religious people.
He didn’t just keep to certain types of people. He didn’t favor the well-educated, or wealthy, or influential. He called fishermen, and political hot heads, and people who were kind of on the fringes of the society to follow him and be his disciples.
He touched all kinds of people others would not. He engaged in conversation with a woman of a different race fetching water at a well. He would go to weddings and dinner parties. He went out on boats and ate food. He practiced his faith and traveled around. This was God among us.
But it isn’t always smooth for people who move into the neighborhood. Sometimes they aren’t welcomed.
Several years ago the house across the street from us went up for sale. It took a long time for this house to sell. We didn’t think it was because of us, but I guess you never know.
Anyway, one day a family that happened to be Vietnamese came to look at the house. Apparently they were pretty serious about it. They went next door to meet and talk to one of the neighbors. This neighbor was an older woman who had lived on our block for many years. When she answered the door they said they were interested in the house next door and could they talk about the neighborhood.
Apparently (so I was told) the woman made a racial remark and promptly slammed the door in their faces. Needless to say that family didn’t move into the neighborhood.
It says Jesus, the Word was in the world, and though this very world was made through him and he was the Creator, the world did not recognize him. The Word came to that which was his own – his very own people in race and religion, in flesh and blood – but his own did not receive him.[2]
Jesus came to this world, moved into the neighborhood, and got the door slammed in his face. That is part of the irony of the gospel story.
In fact, he isn’t in this world very long before King Herod is trying to track him down and kill him. Of course, eventually they do catch up with him – ironically, one of his own disciples paves the way – and they do kill him.
God moved into the world and we didn’t recognize him. God was “in our face” and we turned our backs.[3] Not everyone sang “Joy to the World the Lord is come” when Jesus came. Many still don’t.
What does that say about human beings, that God came and was rejected? Later in John 3 we read, “And this is the judgment: that the Light has come into the world, but human beings loved the darkness instead of the Light because the way they lived was foul.” (3:19)
But God doesn’t stop coming. Though the world condemned him, he didn’t come to condemn the world but to save it in love and grace. (3:17)
When God moved into the neighborhood the message was, “I want to be with you.” The message was, “I know your need. I see your longing. I see the predicament of this earth. And I love you enough to show grace and compassion even through your rejection of me and rebellion. I come with mercy, forgiveness, and to give my very life.”
When God put on flesh and lived here as a man for 33 years in human history it said that God is O.K. with us. He is not ashamed to be like us. He felt the burdens of human life.
He felt the pain of losing someone he loved to death.
He felt the joys of celebrations and sharing food with people and having friends.
He knew what it was to live under an oppressive empire and bad politics.
He knew struggle and success.
He knew loneliness and fulfillment.
He knew what it was to have family tensions.
He knew what it was like to struggle with temptation and be tested.
He knew betrayal when he was turned in by one of his circle of friends.
It is easy to see what sometimes stands for Christianity in America today and think that Christianity is all about worldly power – the power to control, to impose one’s will on others, to destroy enemies. One might mistakenly think Christianity blesses the politically powerful.
The coming of Jesus is directly opposite to that. Christmas is God coming into this broken world and making it his home. He came not with privilege, comfort, public celebration or self-glorification. No, his coming was marked by humility, obscurity, being more concerned with others than self, sacrifice.
One pastor said, “Christ was born in a manger to a family for whom there was no room. He was raised by unremarkable parents in an unremarkable part of the world, conducted a ministry that was missed by most people, died as a criminal on a cross, and his ascension was seen only by a small band of disciples who then led a movement that within three centuries changed the world.”[4]
God put on human flesh and blood and moved into the human neighborhood because he wanted and still wants to be near us and with us. He wants to be with you.
Let’s welcome him into our world, into our church and into our lives.
Prayer: Father, open our eyes to see all that you reveal in Jesus Christ. We don’t want to miss a single instance of grace, nor overlook one item of truth. We want to see it all, your glory in Jesus. Praise you for being with us, walking with us, and helping us. Bless these days of Advent with a deep sense of your goodness an
[1] Tom Wright, John For Everyone, Part 1, p.3
[2] 1:10-11
[3] Dale Bruner, Commentary on John, p.27
[4] Christmas Turns The World Upside Down, Peter Wehner, The New York Times, Dec. 24, 2019