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Creekside Church
Sermon of January
16, 2005
"Behold
The What?"
John
1:29-35
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Rev.
Dave Eis
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I
am thinking of a man who we will call Randy. He underwent surgery
after several years of blindness. The operation was a success to the
extent that he was able to see with the aid of thick lenses. When
he arrived home from the hospital, he immediately set off to fulfill
a long time ambition: to stroll alone through the neighborhood. But
after walking for a few minutes he rushed back to the house, threw
himself on his bed and buried his head in his pillow. His concerned
wife asked what had gone wrong. He replied, "I couldn't take
it anymore. The light hurt my eyes but it was not that as much as
the beauty. There was so much beauty that I could not take it all
in a single dose: human forms; children's faces; faces of old people,
wise with experience of the years; trees and flowers and birds and
clouds and the sky. I couldn't stand it any more. I couldn't absorb
so much light and so much beauty.
Have you ever
discovered how Jesus' Gospel can give you that feeling: so much
light and so much beauty and so much inspiration that you can't
seem to grasp it, take it all in?
To know that
the Lord Almighty, creator of the universe, from the beginning of
time, has been present everywhere and to all peoples as the Christ
Spirit; to know that the Christ Spirit has been working through
Abraham and Moses and all the prophets and other great spiritual
leaders of all ages; to know that God through Jesus is confirming
our humanity with all of its hurts and fears, its laughter and tears,
its hopes and dreams, its temptations and failures; to know that
God, through Jesus, is saying, "That is good, you will find
your fulfillment in AND through following Jesus. HOW CAN WE GRASP
THAT?"
We look at Jesus,
and see the Lamb of God, the Light of the World at its brightest
and at its rarest. We see all of the goodness of God sharply focused
in this Christ Spirit who becomes one of us, to tell us that he
loves us. And we are overwhelmed. We can cry out like John the Baptist
in today's gospel lesson, "Behold! Look! There is the Lamb
of God who dazzles and comforts and heals and works miracles and
takes away the sins of the world!
But that is
only the beginning. The next step toward a wider, fuller experience
of the tremendous Mystery of Christ carries us beyond the talking
stage. I am reminded of the story of the young clergyman who was
asked to preach to some severely disturbed patients at a large mental
institution. It ended up being a disastrous experience. When he
arrived he was greeted by one of the patients who said, "We
are so glad to see you. On behalf of all of us we welcome you. Already
we feel like you are one of us." He ignored the comment and
began the sermon that was prepared for his preaching class in the
seminary he had recently graduated from. He took the resident on
a long theological journey. This sermon was never intended to be
preached to real people. Suddenly one of the patients stood up and
said, "That's all very pretty, reverend preacher, but what
did you have in mind for us to do?" There was stunned silence.
It was obvious the preacher had not given a minutes thought about
what they should do. Quickly, he pronounced the benediction and
headed for the exit.
That would be
a perfectly legitimate thing for you to ask me that question, "Very
pretty reverend, but what did you have in mind for us to do?"
What you need
to do is:
1. Get hold
of this reality in an intimate way. This Cosmic Christ, the Christ
Spirit present to all peoples in all ages, this Christ who is fully
embodied in Jesus, this Christ is present in you. This Christ dwells
in you! Right now, at this very moment, the Christ dwells in you.
Your hope of glory is not that you will be able to live serenely,
not that you will write books or invent machines and become famous,
not that you win the big lottery. Your hope of glory is that you
will be able to grasp, to experience, to embrace the living Christ
within you. To make contact, get in touch with the living Christ:
that is what you must do.
2. You must let the Christ Spirit within you be re leased so completely
that it permeates your entire being; your mind, your emotions, your
body, and your soul. The Christ Spirit must become more and more
the center of your life and the source of power and of light and
of love in your life.
3. You must
let Christ shape your life from within and develop you into the
beautiful, whole, fulfilled person God intended you to be.
4. You must
stop talking about the Christ long enough to begin experiencing,
feeling, and responding to His real presence within you.
Our experience
of the indwelling Christ Spirit evokes a response from us.
Paul writes
in Colossians 2:13, "God gave you new life in Company with
Christ, Holy, and Beloved." Then in the third chapter he builds
to a climax when he writes, "clothe yourselves with heartfelt
mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with
one another; forgive whatever grievances you have against one another;
forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. And above all these virtues,
put on love, which binds the rest together and makes them perfect."
CLOSING:
Ordinary light is a form of energy or radiation which stimulates
the nerve ending of your eyes. How beautiful it is to thank of Christ
as the light of the world, in this way: energy, radiation, power
from God himself, stimulating all the nerve-endings in our lives,
making it possible for us to see: to penetrate the darkness; to
begin to put things into place; to begin to see what life is all
about!
More than that,
it is a power that gives us the strength to love unconditionally.
The light that
is within us is given, not to hide under a bushel as Jesus put it.
The whole world with its many problems needs to be illuminated by
the light of Christ that shines within us. In order to take this
seriously we must open up our heart so that we can see what the
disciple John saw when he cried out,
LOOK! THERE
IS THE LAMB OF GOD
WHO TAKES AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD.
THE REAL LIGHT WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO EVERY PERSON.
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