He Moved In (John 1:1-14) • Geoff Bradford

If you have a Bible or can see the screen behind me, you can go to ctkrally.org on the worship link and find resources for our worship on Sundays there as well.

So we're gonna read together from John 1:1-14. If you join your voices with me. You ready? Three, two, one.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness and yet the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was created through him and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, in his name, who were born not of the natural descent or of the will of the flesh or will of man, but of God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only son from the father, full of grace and truth. — John 1:1-14

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

So we're just coming through Thanksgiving, and I wonder if you've noticed how few Thanksgiving movies there are compared to Christmas. There are lots and lots of Christmas movies. There are very few Thanksgiving movies, but my favorite, I think I consider this the classic, is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's a real old one now. Starred Steve Martin and John Candy as two traveling partners who go through a travel disaster movie. They're trying to make it home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, and they have to go through problem after problem. First flight delays, then flight cancellation, then the bus breaks down, the train breaks down, they can't stay in the hotel room, they rent a car, the car hits a deer, the deer is inside the car and rips up the car, the car catches on fire. Finally, they ride into Chicago in the back of a refrigerated box truck with a polka band.

The whole theme, of course, is getting home for the holidays, and home is the big thing. This is one of the big themes of this year. Every time we come around this part of the year, it's about getting home, being home, being with people that you love. So this Advent season, the theme for our looking at these stories from the gospels is "No Place Like Home for the Holidays," because this idea of being home is so central to what we think of at this time of year. It's part of our ads and our Christmas cards and our movies and everything. It's sort of shoved in your face a little bit. And yet, that theme of home, and particularly God's hospitality, is central to what the coming first coming of Jesus was all about—the hospitality of God.

So we're gonna dive into John chapter one today, and I'm looking at this under four headings: homesick, homeless, rehoming, and homies.

Homesick

You know, the nineteenth and twentieth century German philosophers have this word, particularly this comes from Martin Heidegger. This word that describes what it's like to be human. The word is Unheimlichkeit—any German people here? German speakers? Which means unhoming or unhomeness, not being at home in this world.

They use this phrase to describe what everybody actually feels regularly, that there's a sense in which no matter what I do, I don't entirely belong. Is there a table around which I'm truly known and understood? Is there a sense that I will ever be totally safe in this world? Do I have people who really get me? Yes, I have friends, but do they really get me? And this sense of Unheimlichkeit—what the German philosophers say is this is what everybody feels all the time. This is what we're wrestling with all the time.

We try to fill that void in all kinds of ways. We think, maybe if I buy a house. Maybe if I have that special someone. Maybe if we have kids, maybe if I have the page online that looks like everything is together, then I will feel at home in this world. And the German philosophers say, no. That's never actually gonna be. For all your days, never quite at home.

And I think the gospel writer John has another vision of the same thing. He talks about a people walking in darkness, the sense of being lost in the world. Have you ever been in a wild cave without lights, elevators, paved pathways? I grew up in East Tennessee, and every summer I went to summer camps where we explored wild caves.

One of my favorite things: hard hat, flashlight, clothes you can throw away, and really old sneakers. You go back through the cave, and it was always this experience where you leave the world of 90 degrees on a hot summer day in Tennessee and enter the world of 50 degrees and absolutely dark. Not dark like a dark hotel room, not dark like an eye mask. This is dark dark. This is crazy-making dark. This is the dark where you can wave your hand and you can't see anything. It's disorienting dark.

We always did this exercise. We'd be back in the way back of this cave, and the leader would say, "Okay, we're all going to do this exercise for five minutes. We're going to turn off our flashlights." We never made it. We never made it five minutes. You know why? Because it's disorienting. It's disturbing to be in that kind of sense of, "Oh my, we're this much away from, like, can't get out, can't see how to, what's going to happen?" Some kid always broke and turned on the flashlight.

That's John's version of Unheimlich—a people walking in darkness. This is the human condition: to be locked in the dark, unable to find your way, not knowing where to go. And that feeling we have is actually a huge hint. It's an enormous, eternal hint placed in your very soul by the God of the universe. Eternity is in the human heart. We're made for God. We're made to be with God. We're made for relationship with God.

A lot of writers say this in different ways. The British writer G.K. Chesterton said this: "After I became a Christian, I understood why I've always been homesick even when I was at home." Or the famous one from Saint Augustine:

You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

This homesickness, this Unheimlich, goes really deep in us. It's profound. Homesickness for a home you've never been to.

Maybe you grew up in a great home. Maybe your family still has preserved your childhood bedroom with trophies on the wall or pictures of you all around the house. Maybe you had a great childhood. And yet even for that, there's this sense of something radical and deep. This is because you are bottomless. You are an infinite being. You have an eternal soul, and you live in skin. From the outside, you look finite. You look here today, and if you see your friends from ten years ago, they're like, "You look a little different than you used to." The finiteness is setting in.

And yet on the inside, it's like going to a well and taking a big rock and dropping it, and you count because you're waiting how long till you hear the splash. On the inside of your soul, this is how the God of the universe has made you. You can take the rock and let it go, and you'll never hear the bottom because you are infinite. You're made for eternity with God.

So we do this thing. We stretch our resources. We stretch our money. We try to steal time against aging. We try to, in these very finite years of our life, cram in experiences and make it all work. We're trying to stretch the finite over what's an infinite hole in us, an infinite well.

Maybe the best thing, the very best thing we could do spiritually, is just stop and sort of listen to the ache of that and the longing of that. It's so deep and it's so dark. The phrase "fearfully and wonderfully made"—I mean, it barely scratches the surface of how God has designed you for him.

So this is the root of your homesickness. This is what it's like. This is why we feel this sense of, "Do I belong? Am I ever okay?" Unheimlich—a people walking in darkness, lost in the dark, unable to find our way.

The Gospel of John's Answer

The Gospel of John breaks in with the story of Jesus' coming. It breaks pace with the other gospels. Where all the other gospel accounts are more interested in shepherds and angels and stars and mangers and magi and all the details, John doesn't care about any of that. He wants to know: what's really going on? What's the backstory behind Christmas? What's happening in eternity?

And so you get these phrases:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through him. Apart from him, not one thing was made that has been made, and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.

So much packed into that little statement. John is interested in what happened behind the scenes in eternity. How did we get God in diapers? Jesus' incarnation. The Word became flesh.

The word "incarnation" we use—it's two parts. You get this "in," like our word "in," but "carne," like chili con carne. In meat, in flesh.

God come in meat, in flesh, appearing right in front of us, the enfleshment of God. It's incomprehensible. If you spend time trying to figure this out, how does this work? You'll end up rocking in the corner because it doesn't make sense.

C. S. Lewis says this really well. He says, the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle. The Christian assertion that being—that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated and eternal—come into nature, come into human nature, descended into his own universe. The eternal being who knows everything and created the whole universe, became not only a man, but before that, a baby, and before that, a fetus in a woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think of how it would be for you to become a slug or a crab. I love that. A slug or a crab. What was it like for the eternal divine one?

In him, all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. — Colossians

Jesus embracing limits that he had never known. The eternal God coming and saying, leaving omnipresence, being everywhere all at once, to being only in one place, limited, having to be carried around. The god of the universe who was omnipotent, able to do all things, suddenly unable to do anything—can't feed himself. This is the mystery of the incarnation. This is the thing that we celebrate every year at Christmas that should blow our brains wide open. How? Are you serious?

But the miracle has another direction to it too, doesn't it? It tells us, yes, the process of the incarnation—we read here, the word became flesh—but the purpose of the incarnation: and dwelt among us. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

We sing these words. We say, he left his father's home. He became homeless for us. He leaves heaven to come here. The way that this puts it—the word became flesh and dwelled among us—is a camping word. Eugene Peterson, in his version the Message paraphrase, says, he pitched his tent among us. He camped out. He came not just near, but he pitched his tent among us.

I want you to think about this. If your idea of a good house is a giant mansion with a high wall around it, everything about that says, "Don't come in." But if you show up in my backyard and you pitch a tent, I assume you're using the bathroom in my house and the shower and barging your way into my kitchen. This is what the eternal son of God did. I wanna have this much access. I wanna be this near. I wanna be this with.

The Greek for this word is that he tabernacled among us. That's an Old Testament word. It goes back to God's people camping in the desert. They're all in tents, and God says, I want you to make me a big tent. We're gonna call it the tabernacle, but it's gonna be in the middle of all your tents, and it's gonna look like your tents from the outside. It's ordinary on the outside, but glorious on the inside. It's completely different on the inside. It's a place of glory.

This is why this passage talks about him tabernacling among us. He came and dwelt among us. Jesus—ordinary on the outside, looked like everybody else, talked like everybody else. They even said he had an accent. He smelled like everybody else. First century peasant. But on the inside, what do we read in this passage?

The glory, the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth.

Homesick—this is our condition. But homeless is what he becomes. He leaves his father's home above to pitch his tent, to be with us and to be near us. The big story of Christmas, as John tells us this Christmas story, is not about Mary and Joseph and angels and a baby. It's about Jesus who becomes homeless for the homesick ones in order that he might bring us home.

This is the big story. For those who walk in darkness, he is gonna give them the right. Says to all who receive him, he gave them the right to become children of God—to bring the homeless ones home.

In our modern way of talking about this, we have a word for that. It's called adoption. When someone takes a child that was not originally theirs into their home, and it's permanent, and it's legal, and it's binding, and it confers a relationship.

Adoption as a Legal Status

Adoption has a legal status to it. It says here, he gave them the right. In other words, it's not based on the feelings of the person who's being adopted. "Do I feel very adopted today? No." It doesn't matter about that. God has said, this is your right by faith. This is yours. Nothing can change that. It's a legal status. You have a new last name, a new legal guardian. It's a legal status that confers a relationship.

He gave the right to be children of God—sons, daughters. It's a declaration that confers a relationship permanently. Forever, you get to use language that no one else has the right to use. I have six sons.

They are the only six people in the whole world that can use this one name for me, daddy, dad. Similarly, God comes in the person of Jesus and says, this is the new way. You get to talk to God. Daddy, Dad. Children of God. And finally, a legal status that confers a relationship that comes at a fee, at a cost.

Do you know the word rehoming? It's adoption language applied to pets. You go on Craigslist looking up cats and dogs. We know something about this as a family recently. You go in and find here are some puppies that are available, here are the kittens that are available, here's the rehoming fee. This is what you have to pay to bring the pet home.

And of course, this is a picture for us of what the gospel looks like. Jesus comes and he pays the fee to adopt us, to bring us home. We use this financial language always in the gospel to talk about Jesus' work and his ministry. He came to redeem us. Redemption is a word we use for coupons, a monetary term. He paid a price. We say he paid for our sins. And even at the cross, when Jesus says, "It is finished," that's a monetary term—paid in full. The rehoming fee paid in full. Your adoption is this legal status given to you by the Lord Jesus Christ.

But here's the problem with adoption. A person who has been adopted, a dog or a cat that's been brought into a home, doesn't always know what that really means on the inside. A child has to adapt to being adopted. Some of the pets, your rescues that you've paid the rehoming fee for, they get this sense that I actually do have a safe place to sleep at night, I have a warm bed, I have meals coming. No. They act like they're strays for the rest of their lives. They bite and scratch, just like many of us do. We can't quite get it in our heads: this is really true, this is really who you are.

Dane Ortland describes adoption. He says this is really hard for us to take into our hearts, to really own this. He says this is why Christians could live years with Unheimlich, with this sense like, I know I'm home, I know I'm adopted, but I don't really know. Here's how he puts it: there are two ways to live the Christian life. You can either live it for the heart of Christ or from the heart of Christ. You can live for the smile of God or from the smile of God. For an identity as a son or daughter of God, or from the identity as a son or daughter of God. For your union with Christ or from it.

You know the difference? This sense that I'm always just short, there's something always wrong, even with him. And the great message of the gospel, the story of the incarnation, is that Jesus came near without precondition, without prerequisite. He doesn't ask for a resume turned in ahead of time. He just draws near. This is the incredible grace of God for sinners.

I want you to know—this is my heart for this church—that over this Advent season, we would take this in. We'd begin to even address the Unheimlich in our own hearts. Am I working from or for? Am I living from or for? Is my identity from or for? What defines me?

So as I've said: homesick, our condition. Homeless, what he became. Rehoming, what he does for us. And finally, homies. Yes, you got it. Homies. Because the Christmas story is one of God's radical, proactive, surprising, beautiful hospitality. His welcome home, even as he enters his own creation to adopt us and bring us into his family.

So the people of God, look around. I'm serious. Look around. These are your homies. These are your homies—fellow homesick, homeless, and rehomed others, other stray cats and dogs who've been adopted into the family of God. That's what you got here. That's why church feels weird a lot of times. You're like, man, there's a lot of claws and teeth here. There's a lot of crazy in the body of Christ. But these are your homies, and God is such a gracious father, and the ones that he brings in, the strays that he brings in.

Practical Application for Advent

Here's the practical implication of Advent for you today. I have two application points for you.

First: practice hospitality within the family of God. Practice hospitality. As God has welcomed you, welcome one another. Incarnate the gospel. Now we can't incarnate like we're becoming something different like Jesus did, but we live out the fleshedness of God in the relationships we have with one another. We are Jesus with skin on to other people around us. We represent, by the way we act, his welcome of one another. Move into the neighborhood. Draw near to one another as we all feel that sense in our lives.

Here's the first one: practice hospitality at church.

Now, I love how in the New Testament, those words always go together: practice and hospitality. I'm talking practice. Practice. Because none of us are good at it. Nobody's good at this. I think that scripture has this down for us because it's like, y'all have no idea. You who feel homesick, you have no idea how to welcome each other home, so let's practice this. Practice this to one another. Practice hospitality on your homies.

Welcome the stranger, the orphan, the widow, the poor, the prodigal, the undeserving, the self righteous, the Pharisee, the smug, the prostitute, the good, the bad, the nice, and the mean.

I'm gonna give you 12 action items of ways that you can apply this. You don't have to do all of them. Just pick one.

One: Introduce yourself to people you don't know. Hi. I don't think I've met you yet.

Two: Smile at people at church. You'd be surprised how many people come through our door every Sunday with a heavy heart. People show up at service and all their nerve endings are exposed because we're coming in to worship the living God, and people's tears are right there. People's anger is right there. People's hurt is right there. Smile at them.

Three: Greet children. You know, if you ignore children, they will feel invisible, and they'll get the message they don't matter here. I'm pretty sure every one of you was a child at one point. Greet children.

Four: Work to remember names and ask somebody's name if you forget. That's okay. It just means I care. Hey, I know I should know your name. We've talked a dozen times, but it's so important for me to know this. Can you remind me? They're not gonna be insulted. They're gonna be like, oh, you care?

Five: Invite somebody out or over. Most everybody has no plans after church.

Six: Greet one another with a touch. Shake hands, hug, and of course, ask permission before you hug somebody. Most people never get touched by other people. Hugging, embracing one another, warmly greeting each other. I don't care if it's a fist bump or whatever you can do. The New Testament says greet each other with a holy kiss. We're not gonna kiss, but worth it.

Seven: Ask somebody about their week and actually listen to them and mean it.

Eight: Offer to babysit for a young family or somebody who needs to go out to shop.

Nine: Send an encouraging text message to someone. Thinking of you today. So glad you are in my church family.

Ten: When you've seen somebody you haven't seen in a long time, say "I've missed you. You matter." Don't say, "Where have you been?"

Eleven: Follow-up. Somebody tells you something like, "I have surgery coming up." Write that down, and call them that day or text them.

Twelve: Don't be shocked. I mean, I think everybody here is a stray dog or cat. So if we go back to our feral ways, we shouldn't be surprised other people do either.

I'm gonna say this one thing, and I think you probably already know this. The reason people come to a church is they usually come and they're like, "Oh, I like the music or the preaching at this church." That's what draws them. But do you know why people stay? People stay because of relationships. Christians have an unbelievable tolerance for bad preaching and bad music in churches, and they will stay in a place a long time. Why? Because people care about them. You know, the church isn't a show. It's a worshiping people of God. It's a family, and it's really important that people, everyone here knows you belong. You matter. You're important. Can we practice hospitality for each other, for your homies?

Go Get Your Homies

Alright. Second one, and I'm a little bit cautious about this one, but I'm gonna jump in. Go get your homies.

You know the prodigal son story in Luke 15? The older son who stays at home, the younger son who rebels and runs away, and of course, the surprise ending—this is Jesus' most famous parable. The surprise ending is the father. And when he sees his son down the road, he pulls up his robe and runs. This was not done. This is the shocker of Jesus' parable. Fathers, dignified fathers in first century Jewish households do not run in robes down the road, but this is what God is like. He runs to sinners.

It's the same in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—again, my favorite Thanksgiving movie. The prodigal son moment is the part of the movie.

So the movie is a dynamic between Steve Martin, who plays the straight man, and John Candy, who's the goofball driving Steve Martin crazy throughout the whole movie. They're trying together to get back to Chicago. As they finally arrive in the back of a box truck into Chicago, they go to the L stop, the subway stop, and that's where they're like, "Well, I guess this is it. Goodbye. I'll see you later." Steve Martin's train comes first, so he gets on the train and sits down, picturing his wife, picturing the Thanksgiving table, picturing all the home things.

Then he goes back and remembers the last couple of days with John Candy—the plane breakdown, the bus breakdown, the car breakdown, the deer on the inside of the car, all the crazy stuff. He's laughing, and then he realizes he missed something John Candy's character said: "I haven't been home in years." He realizes that picture John Candy carries around of his wife—she's not still here. John Candy's character is homeless.

So Steve Martin gets off at the next stop. He goes around the outside of the L and comes back to the station where John Candy is sitting there. He says, "What are you doing here?" Of course, Candy's character has nothing to say. Steve Martin says, "Come on." They load up the trunk, they put him in the car, and he goes home with Steve Martin. Steve Martin turns to his wife and she's like, "Who is this?" And he says, "This is my new friend."

Such a picture of going after the prodigal.

Going After the Prodigal

This is maybe a dangerous sermon application, but I'm going to make it anyway. Would you go get the prodigal? Would you go get your homies? There are many people who have left our church or just have fallen away from church in general. Actually, the stats on this are not like people hate Jesus and are tired of theology and don't like any of that. They just are out of the habit, and they just need to be welcomed and pursued.

It is the saddest thing to disappear from a church and nobody notice and nobody be able to tell. It's really embarrassing to come back to church if you haven't been there in a while. It could feel shameful. And I can tell you as a pastor, if my buddy James and I make that phone call—"Hey, we haven't seen you in a while"—people think that's my job. Like, "Oh, he's supposed to do that. He's paid to do that." They sort of discount it. But if you make that phone call, if you call someone else and say, "You know what? You need a church family. I know you probably don't have one, or you used to have this one. Would you come back with me next Sunday? Would you sit with me? I'll wait for you outside. I just want you to come back. I want you to be welcomed home."

If you've been around our church for any length of time, you know some names. One of the great things about being in one service together is you can see who's here and who's not. If they're not here, they're not here. So go get your homies. Go get your homies. Let's make Heimlich disappear this Christmas.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for the incredible welcome that we have from the God of the universe. It's hard for us to live out of that and to hold on to that. We thank you for the gift that worship is every week, to remind us that we still have your last name and we still have your affection, and nothing has changed with the God of the universe. Your love is that constant. Thank you that our adoption is that sure.

Father, we pray to be a kind of church that says "welcome home" every week to one another and goes and brings people in who need a spiritual family. Lord, that's every person. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.