He's Up There | Elijah Lamb

We are in a series here at Cathedral, working through a Christmas series. We do the best Christmas series, by the way, I've ever seen before. Having been here, I've been here for almost three years. No, I've been here for three years now, which is redonkulous. You know what I mean? That's pretty much insane.

And every time I'm like, nobody does Christmas like this, like as far as the messages. Like this is, this is, it's just so fun. You know what I'm saying? Do you agree? I thought Pastor Jake's message in Matthew last week was redonk, like was just amazing. Do you agree? Yes.

I feel like normally the thought is that you hit a Christmas series and it's like, all right, we're going to get four doozies out of this one. And then it's like, no, actually we show up and like, it's like, sometimes I'm like, these are the four best sermons of the year when December hits. I don't know. Maybe you disagree.

But so we're working through in this series, how each of the gospels uniquely portray Jesus. And so what, the question is not like, okay, what is, does John have a different Jesus than Matthew? And does he have a different Jesus than Mark? It's like, that's not what it is. They're talking about the same man and they're telling a lot of the same stories, but they're offering a unique angle.

They're emphasizing different things, right? So they have different rhetorical goals as they write these books. And so they're going to, they're going to highlight and make obvious different things over one another. So they're telling the stories uniquely to themselves because they're people.

And so what we're doing is we're looking through each gospel and the way that they introduce Jesus. I am notoriously bad at introductions. Hence the whole, like, I'm so nervous. I have to talk to the camera in front of you for 15 seconds.

And, and honestly, every single time I start a sermon, you should see me write my notes. Like I can write the most brilliant sermon, but it takes me 30 minutes to come up with like, what am I going to say first? I don't know, man. That's the hardest part. And anyone who's ever like written anything knows like that's literally the hardest part all the time. Yes. Do you agree? Okay.

So it's really, really important though. Like if I would love it, if we could just like do away with introductions and just like be done with them forever, but that's like completely illogical and that just wouldn't make any sense. Right. Things are better because they're introduced. And as much as I'd want to get rid of them, that's, that's just, that would be a dumb idea. Introductions matter and starting places matter.

And so today we get to look at the gospel of John and his introduction to us. Here is Jesus. His opening, what's called the prologue and the first 18 verses is like this poem. Like it's like this crazy thing. You could literally live in it your whole life just like interpreting it and, and learning about it because it's so amazing. It's so rich with meaning.

And so we're going to start there. I think of the four gospels. John is arguably the weirdest, particularly his introduction, his opening. It's definitely the weirdest and like the nerdiest, but it is my favorite. So, so buckle up because it's rich. It's potent with beauty. You just got to come along with me. Okay. Are you ready? All right, let's do this.

John chapter one, verse one in the beginnings, pause, stop. We're going to stop right there and give this a moment to look at this. Okay. John is not, you know, being sneaky. You know, this isn't like, wow, John, this is, he's just like subtly snuck something in there. No, no, no. Like we're meant to read those first three words and go, wait a minute. I've heard that before. You know what I'm saying? Right. He's trying to remind us of something. Any takers on what John is reminding us of? Thank you. Genesis chapter, Bible scholars all across the room. Genesis chapter one, verse one.

Whoa. Did you see how like when it faded, they stayed the same. Go back to John one, one. Check that out. Whoa. That's pretty cool. Okay. Genesis one, one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So John is calling us, uh, is wanting his original reader and us today to immediately go on our minds to this place. I just got time traveled back into, you know, kids church as a child. You know, I'm in VBS right now. I'm there. I'm there again.

And this like opening story that they hit you with, I'm like, it's like, right. Like, yeah, John, that's exactly what you're bringing to mind. I want to give you like an equivalent scenario. I get, I know you get the point, but I think this is funny. It's funny. So I just want you to imagine that it's 1990. Okay. I was negative 12 years old.

Yeah. Yeah. what's that? My dad was 13. You know what I mean? That's pretty much insane. Uh, so it's 19. Some of y 'all old. I'm, what am I going to say? Uh, it's, it's okay. Just put yourself in this situation. I take it back. I'm sorry. It's 1990. Okay. The radio is on, you know, you're in the car. If they, if they had radios in the car back in 1990, I don't know. know what I'm saying? The radio is on or whatever is happening. You know, you got like a, somebody burnt you a CD. If they did that yet. I seriously don't know, man. I wasn't there.

Uh, but so you're like, let's just say a song comes on in some situation and you hear that familiar, like, and you're like, wait a minute. Throw back queen. Okay. Freddie Mercury. Here it goes. Okay. Okay. Okay. And you're like, wait, turn it up. And then all of a sudden you get that. All right, stop. Collaborate and listen. And you're like, whoa, what just happened? This is new. This is not the same thing. John is doing that. John is doing, John just, John just ice ice babied under pressure. Okay. That's what just happened. Okay.

Pretty good. Pretty good. You definitely, yes. Thank you, David.

You get what I'm saying. That's what is happening in the book of John. That's his intention. That's what he wants to happen to us. He is taking us basically to the most possible meta level back to the very beginning. And what we can gather from this before, just from the first three words of John is that John is going to tell us a story and he wants us to understand this is not a story about one character and one place at one time. Whatever John is going to follow these words with his point that he wants us to understand is that what he's going to say is not just any story. It's a part of the story, right?

And it's such a significant story that it needs to be rooted in the very beginning. He's got to go back. He's got to go back that early. You know, this is the definition of, well, long story. You know, when someone says like, you ask someone a question, you're like, well, it's a pretty long story. John's like, so let me jump back before time existed. You're like, dude, what? You know what I'm saying? That's literally insane.

Well, John wants us to understand the origins of Jesus. I'm kind of spoiling things, but so let's go back to John chapter one. In the beginning, everyone say this word with me. In the beginning was the? Word. And the? Word. Was with God. And the word was? God. Oh, man. Man, there's so much.

Okay, let's read verse two and three, and then we'll make sense of all of this together. He was with God, the word, in the beginning. And all things were created through him and apart from him. Not one thing that was created that has been created. Not one thing that was made has. Not one thing that has. Whatever, dude. That phrasing is like, I tried to like remember it, looking away from it, and it's almost impossible because he says that so strangely. But it's awesome. Okay?

There's literally so much going on here in what John is trying to describe. He's beginning this biography of Jesus. And I want you to just like think about this. Like, because I'm going to argue to you this morning that this, those three verses are some of the most potent verses in the Bible. Like, absolutely full of meaning. And I want us to consider, because there's this attitude towards the Gospels that I was having a conversation with some guys last night. A couple guys who were like atheists, and they were talking, we're talking about the Bible.

And I just had to like break into the conversation and go like, do you think the Gospel writers were like stupid people? Why do we think that? Why do we think that? When anyone who's like familiar with the text, and like has given the, given the Bible, they're given their life to like studying these things. Like, they, you realize that the New Testament, especially the Gospels, they're brilliant. They're brilliant. And they're very intentional.

Why? Well, because John, I want you to just imagine, like John's like a 16 -year -old boy when he meets Jesus. And Jesus breaks into John's life and completely and utterly changes everything for him in a way that he could never go back. Everything is completely upside down. And he has this sort of like, this, what some have called like a deep, like sort of like best friendship with Jesus. He's called the disciple that Jesus loved. Now, he calls himself that, which is awesome. Um, but that is what he's called. And that's John's relationship with Jesus.

Well, this Gospel wasn't written until literal decades after that occurred. These, these stories and these words from Jesus have been marinating on his heart and in his mind for years, for a very long time. John has had a lot of time to think about, if I had to introduce Jesus to the world, how would I do it? And so these first three verses are really important. John has been thinking about how he would begin this work for years, for decades of his life. So naturally, we can assume. We can assume that he's imported all kinds of meaning there.

So what's up with this? What's up? Go back to verse one, if you will. What, what's up with this word thing? And why, and why is the W capitalized? You know what I mean? What's going on there? That's kind of interesting. And, and the, the, the word was in the beginning and the word was with God. And then like, oh, 90 degree angle. And the word was God. It's like, okay, you keep, are you changing your mind? What's happening here? Uh, this is like, this is so brilliant.

So let me give you a few things, uh, basically what we're going to come to see is that John is talking about Jesus. But in a way, again, that literally precedes the existence of time, like he's going back to like, let me talk to you about Jesus before we knew him on the earth, which is so cool to the Jewish mind. When you read this word word, uh, throughout like the old Testament and in Jewish understanding, this is like an echo of Genesis here, right? Cause we like, what does it say? God spoke to create the world. He spoke creation into existence.

That's what we believe that happens in John chapter one, that creation create God created everything out of nothing by speaking. And so it became this idea that the word. Word is God's creative force and creative power in the, in the world. That's why he goes on to say nothing that has been created has been created apart from him. That's his idea. That's, that's the word. And then as the line goes down, God's word came to be associated with, with his wisdom, which is literally what they believed held the universe together. God's wisdom is what is organizing and keeping the universe ordered and kept together.

And then they begin to attach the idea of his word to the law, to the Torah. And so whatever this word is, whoever he is, there's a sense in which he is literally God's law embodied. And so just right here to the Jewish mind, they're reading this and they're like, oh, that's a familiar word. And there's a lot of meaning there, especially with the way that he's using it. So I'm looking at this person, the word who was with God and who was God. And I see that in him is like, that's the creative force of God in the world. That's the wisdom of God. That's holding everything together. And that's the embodiment of God's law.

And John is coming to show us. And he is a person, right? And he is a person. And so the other thing though, is that this word, this is a Greek word. The word word is logos. Everyone say logos. Logos is jam packed full of philosophical meaning to every pagan person who would have read John's gospel, who would have heard it read aloud. The Stoics taught, which was like the prevailing idea in the Roman world, was that the logos was like this, it's genuinely hard to explain because they were kind of weird, but the logos was this abstract, but like rational principle that governed and ordered the world and was in simplest terms, the ultimate source of meaning for human beings.

There was this sort of like invisible thing. That held the world together and gave the world meaning. And what they believe is if you could get into contact with this logos, with this principle, then you could make sense of your life. And John is going, yeah, yeah, that's true. But he's a he. The word is a he and he was with God and the word was God. So cool. Yes.

Okay. So immediately we can see that John is introducing us to the logos. The one who is six things identical to the creator, who is himself the creative power of God in the world. Who is the one who holds all things together, who is the very embodiment of all God's laws, who is the divine principle behind everything and who is the meaning of life. Well, that's God, right? Also known as God. Those six things can only be attributed to God himself. And so we're introduced to the logos.

This is, and then this is where things get really, really, really, really insane. Let me read to you. John chapter one, verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is one of the single most insane verses in the entire Bible. The creator, God, who is the very creative force of God in the world, who is the wisdom holds everything together, who is the very embodiment of the law, who is the ultimate source of meaning and the divine principle that holds everything together. That person became flesh and dwelt among us. There's a lot of weight there.

And we observed his glory. The glory as the one and only son from the father, full of grace and truth. God, the logos, the son becomes a man. This is confusing. When Jesus is called the son, he's not talking about like the way human father, son relationships work. So when John calls Jesus the son of God, the only son from the father, that's it. He's attributing divinity to Jesus. So what people might say, I've often heard, is Jesus God or is he God's son? It's like, that's, you're not understanding the way that those terms are being used. To call Jesus the son of God just means to say that Jesus is God, but that the father and the son are different.

Okay. We believe in father, son, and holy spirit. A lot of that idea is rooted in a text like this. It's where we pull a lot of that from. It's really important. I think this is arguably the most insane claim in the whole Bible. Really, simply, God became a man. God became a man. I have to like rehearse this and retrain myself to keep being shocked by this because I'm a human being and I'm stupid and it's so easy to just get used to something like that. But like, no, John just spent all this time telling us who this person, the word is, and then he drops this on us, this bomb on us, hey, and then he became flesh.

I want to be taken aback by that every single time because it's the most ridiculous thing a human being has ever claimed. Ever. Ever. And then he says, he's like, okay, well, let me tell you why. John chapter one, verse 18, no one has ever seen God. The one and only son. And by the way, if you're confused about Jesus being like, if you're like, no, I don't think Jesus is God. Check it out right here. The one and only son who is himself God, awesome, and is at the father's side, he has revealed him.

So Jesus, the word came into the world as a man to reveal God to humanity, to be God in the world in a more immediate sense than humanity has ever known before, to continue the pattern of God's involvement. In the human story, but in a more direct and powerful way than any human

had ever seen. So just these few verses we've looked at, John has already told us some really significant things about Jesus. He is the eternal God. He was made flesh and became a man so that to the end that he might intervene in our story.

That's crazy. Can we just like pause there and just address the fact that that's insane. Do you agree? Yes. Jesus Christ is the eternal God. He became a man. Just so that he could get involved in the human story. So John goes on to tell us about another really important guy called John. Happened to be like the most common name in Israel, by the way. Also, you know, so many names that we said like that we have today come from John. Like if your name is Sean, if your name is like Evan, like all those names come from John. It's like a long story, but like they, Ivan comes from John. It's like a whole thing.

I just wanted to tell you that fun fact. Um, John the Baptist. That's the one he's talking about the Baptist one. So John is the regular guy and then the other guys followed by the Baptist, you know, cool name, cool title for sure. And what he had to say about Jesus. So let me, let me introduce you to what John has to say. John chapter one, verse 29. This is John speaking. He says the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Let me jump down just a few verses. Verse 34. John says this. I have seen. I have seen and testified that this is the son of God. And then it says the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples and when he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the lamb of God. So here at the very start of John's gospel, uh, as the narrative begins, we have a spoiler basically from John the Baptist about what's coming ahead. Not cool. John, dude. No. Okay. He gives us this spoiler about what we should expect by calling Jesus the lamb, right? There are 96 references to lambs. In the old Testament, 85 of them refer to sacrifice. And then when he attaches the idea of taking the sins, the sins of the world away, John is implying that this is the sacrificial lamb of God who's come to die to pay for sins. But the really insane thing that I want to point out to you that's happening in there, there's this like sandwich. It's a bit, a bit poetic there. He says first the lamb of God, this is the lamb of God. And then he comes in in the middle and he says, this is the son of God. And then he drops again. This is the lamb of God. And it's as if John is like, he's taking his time. It's like, oh yeah, Jesus Christ, the guy that like you just read about, like here's what John said about him. He said it was the lamb of God. You're like, wait, okay. Like I'm kind of having some conflict with that. Like, it feels like those two things can't really go together and I'll explain why that wrestle might happen. He goes, but like, no, no, but just to clarify, like he is the son of God. You're like, okay. Yeah. I feel confident again. You're like, yeah. But also he still is the lamb of God. And you're like, literally what's going on. There's something happening here. Like we may not understand, but those two things, there's like a, there's a conflict happening between those two realities. The very last person that we should expect to be the lamb of God is the one called the son of God. Those two things should not naturally go together. The son of God identifier creates this tension, right? There's something in us that should be saying, no, surely the eternal logos, the son of God who has existed forever cannot also be the sacrificial lamb, right? It's as simple as this. If I heard, if I heard the rumor that God came into the world, I wouldn't go looking in the sheep pen, but that's how God has introduced himself. That's a problem with me. And so this is the drama of John's gospel that I'm sort of, I'm sort of getting ahead of myself here. So I want to look at the people that responded to John's preaching and, and what they do. So John chapter one, verse 37, this is like the X, this, this is what we're expecting. This is how we're expecting people to respond. The two disciples, they were being talked about in the narrative before the two disciples heard him say this. They heard John say that Jesus is the lamb of God, the son of God, and they followed Jesus. Okay. So one of those guys turns out to be Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. He goes to Peter and he's like, yup. Found the Messiah. And Peter's like, what? And then Jesus shows up and he's like, true. And so then Peter's like, all right, I'm gonna follow him. And then they like traveled like the town across this, you know, down the hill and Jesus pulls up to Philip and he's like, yo, Philip, I'm that guy. And Philip's like, sick. This is amazing. I'm going to follow you. Okay. And like, that's kind of what we're expecting. You know, we're expecting people to hear about the lamb of God and to get on board. You know what I mean? Cause Israel is awaiting the Messiah. So we're, we're expecting that that's going to be people's reaction. And then, and then John does a little, little silly move on us. Enter our guy, Nathaniel. Okay. And he really mixes up the story. So John chapter one, verse 44. Listen to this. Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and told him we have found the one that Moses wrote about in the law. And so did the prophets, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nathaniel asked him, come and see Philip answered. Let's stop here. That's a really important question. When, so you might not understand this. Bethsaida is literally like the town, like a, you know, it's like a mile away or whatever. It's, it's the nearest town to, to Nazareth. Where Jesus is from. So there's like a rivalry. You know, that'd be like, if someone came to you and said the Messiah, he's come, he's from Bakersfield. And you'd be like, no, dude, he's not, he is not from Bakersfield. It's pretty good, right?

And this, this, that's funny.

This sort of thing happens over and over again in the gospels. People misunderstand Jesus because they didn't think the Messiah would be the way that Jesus was.

Uh, John's whole point in his gospel is that, that Jesus tended to be the kind of Messiah that was constantly, I spilled, was constantly subverting our expectations.

Thank God. Where was I? Ah, okay. So people misunderstand Jesus because they see him and they're like, no, this is not what I thought the Messiah would be. Now, Nathaniel is just a bit of a goofball and he's like, no, the Messiah can't be from Nazareth. But that's the whole, it's like, um, here's the best analogy I can give you. I remember in like 2011, you know, probably that's around the year I'm guessing this was, it was like, I remember there was this YouTube video that went around and it was like a video that was like, okay, there's two basketball teams and I want you to count how many times the team wearing black passes the ball. Right? Do you remember this video? And then at the end, you know, you count and you like give a number and they don't even acknowledge it. They go, but did you see the bear? And there was like a guy in a bear costume who walks across the screen like this and you just completely missed it. Right? And you watch it and you're like, how, how could I possibly have missed that? That's exactly what John is trying to tell us. People are like with the Messiah. They had an expectation of what Jesus would be like and they constantly missed the real Messiah arriving in the world because they expected him to look away that he didn't actually look. They misunderstood what God was like and they, what they did was they sort of like projected all their expectations onto the Messiah. Like whatever I want from Messiah, I'm just going to project that onto him. So Nathaniel evidently doesn't want to expose a Messiah that's from Nazareth and it creates problems for him. The real problem with Nathaniel is his pride. He cannot get past what he thinks the Messiah should be like. I recently was having a conversation with a guy, uh, who was not quite ready to embrace Christianity. So we're kind of going back and forth. He's telling me why it doesn't make any sense to him. And he goes, just like, I just don't like the idea of crucifixion. I'm like, tell me more about that. And he's like, look, I don't know whether Jesus is God or not. I don't like the idea of him being crucified, of him being executed. And I'm like, you know, I don't think he liked it either, but I, but, but a resistance to Jesus that says, well, I don't like that. The story says Jesus did this well, there's not going to be another Jesus who comes along, you know, who doesn't come to get crucified. We don't, we don't get to reinvent. God in the image that we wanted to be in Nathaniel is caught here in this moment, missing God's arrival in the world because to him, Nazareth doesn't seem like a good enough place, but he, but he kind of bites and he's like, okay, I'll go, I'll go meet this guy. So here's what he says in verse 47. Then Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said about him here truly is an Israelite and whom there is no deceit. How do you know me? Nathaniel asked before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree. I saw you. Jesus answered, big flex rabbi, Nathaniel replied, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. And then Jesus. Like not impressed. Jesus responded to him. Do you believe because I told you, I saw you under the fig tree, you will see greater things than this. And then he said, truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. So Nathaniel has this unique interaction where Jesus basically gives him a word of knowledge and it like totally blows his mind. And despite the fact that Jesus was from humble, you know, podunk Nazareth. Something happens here where Nathaniel realizes that actually Jesus was condescending to his father. He's like, oh, wait, I misunderstood this guy. And he has this moment in such a way that he realizes that Jesus has intimate knowledge of him. And Nathaniel in this moment realizes that Jesus is better than the Messiah that he wanted. Because this Messiah knows me. Matter of fact, on a deeper level, this Messiah is like me. And that's not what I expected. That's not what I anticipated. But now that I'm looking at it, I'm realizing this is actually better. This is better than what I wanted. And that's pretty much how God works. Constantly and consistently he goes, that's not what I'm like. And you're like, really? And then you realize, wait a minute, I'm glad.

Nathaniel doesn't quite get the full picture though. He has this really high estimation of Christ, but more than likely it was still rooted in, you know, earthly understanding to the Messiah. There's a famous author from the 11th century, Thomas Aquinas, who said that the reason Nathaniel doesn't get like high praise from Jesus for this response is because if Nathaniel understood, like in the same, John the Baptist calls Jesus the son of God. And John the Baptist is saying something about Jesus' nature. Nathaniel doesn't quite get it at that level. He's just saying like, you're one of God's sons. And if he understood it the way John the Baptist did, he would have said, you're the king of the whole world, not just the king of Israel. So reflect that Nathaniel is kind of like, he's still figuring it out. He's still putting the pieces together. So Jesus is like, no, bro, my guy, Nate, my guy, Nate, I'm just getting started. You haven't seen anything yet here. And so then Jesus makes this reference to the book of Genesis where this moment where Jacob, he sees this vision of a ladder to heaven. And what it represents is a connection between heaven and hell. Between heaven and earth and God and man. That's when he's saying the whole like, you'll see angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. I am that figure. I am the ladder. I am the connection between heaven and earth, between God and man. That's me. That's me. And I'm going to show that to you. I'm going to make it really obvious to you who I really am. And you will see the proof with your eyes. The question is how? John chapter 12. Listen to this. This is where Jesus basically explains. He says, he says this, as for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. Jesus is telling us that he's going to demonstrate his dignity, his majesty, his power, his worthiness, his royalty by being lifted up. It's kingly language. It doesn't mean lifted up the way that we would expect. He means to be lifted up and crucified.

I'll be lifted up from the earth on a cross. And that's the part that like is hard to miss. And until you like read the narrative and you catch it later on, you're like, that's what Jesus was talking about. This cross, this crucifixion is the place in which Jesus has descended. And he has decided is going to be the ultimate revelation of what God is like. There's this, there's a moment in the novel Night by Elie Wiesel. It's a famous novel about the Holocaust. And there's this really difficult to read moment in the novel. So I'll be short on the details. But basically the main character is observing an execution. Three men are being executed, are being hung. And the men in the crowd that are watching are remarking like this is horrible. And one of them keeps on saying, where is God? Where is God? And when the men finally pass, the same man says, where is God now? And his character says, and then a voice spoke inside of me, where is he? He's here. He's hanging there on the gallows. That's really powerful. And I suppose I want to borrow from that language. So I want you to like consider this with me. Enter the world of the Gospel of John. Let's assume that you've just heard about Jesus for the first time. Let's assume that all you know about Jesus is what John has told us so far. The word, the eternal logos has become flesh to reveal God to the world. The creator God has become one of us. The holy of holies, the one from the high places has come down to lowly humble earth. And has demonstrated his love and his power. The meaning of life has tangibly come on the scene. The ultimate reality of the world has joined the world. And the creator of mankind has become a man. That's all you know about Jesus. You don't know any of his teachings, any of his actions. You don't know where he's from. You don't know the birth narrative. You don't know anything about him. And I say, I'm going to take you. I'm going to time travel you. Into a very pivotal moment in the story, okay? So you got no context except who this man is. I'm going to take you somewhere really important. And so I take you to an otherwise random day after the Passover in Jerusalem. And I drop you outside the city to this very dreary site of three men nailed to wooden crosses. And you might say to me, why? Why have you brought me here? What's the point? And I imagine I would say to you, I've brought you here to see him. And you might respond to me and say, where? Where in this site might the creator God be? And I suppose I would say to you, he's up there, of course. He's the man on the middle cross.

Could there possibly be any more shocking, anything more shocking that I might say in that situation? Absolutely not. It completely subverts our expectations of what God in the world might do. And so this is why John goes to such a great length in his gospel to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus. Because it's not just any man on that cross. And John says, I really need you to understand this. Understand the gravity of the story of Jesus. And if I'm going to do that, I've got to get meta. I've got to take you back to the very beginning and introduce you to this person. So that you understand that he has this worth and this dignity that far exceeds any human being who has ever lived. Because he's not just a man. He's God in the flesh. I love this quote from one theologian. He says, God did not become man according to the measure of our conceptions of being a man. He became the kind of man that we do not want to be. An outcast. Accursed. Crucified. And when the crucified Jesus is called the image of the invisible God, the meaning is that this is God. And God is like this.

And he goes on to explain that in this humiliation, we see the greatness of God. In this self -surrender, we see the glory of God. And in this helplessness, we see the power of God. Those things are not absent from this moment. In this great moment of humiliation, self -surrender, and helplessness, we see in the most immediate way that we ever could have, the greatness, the glory, and the power of God. This is the moment in all of human history that God has decided to show us what he is really like. And it's nothing like what we'd expect. Not in a million years. There's a historian, he says something really brilliant. He says, the discrepancy between the shameful death of a Jewish state criminal and the confession that depicts this executed man as the pre -existent divine figure who becomes man and humbles himself to a slave's death is, this is the important part, as far as I can see, without analogy, in the ancient world. Nobody had ever told a story like this, because it's nothing like something we would come up with. It's nothing like what we'd predict. But it's right, and it's true. I remember this past summer, I was in the UK. I was in London, actually, and I went into this Roman Catholic cathedral. And as I do, because I love old churches, and I walked in and there's this, the most beautiful depiction of the crucifixion that I've ever seen before. It's this massive, red, I mean huge, literally so insanely massive, red cross. And I remember looking at my friend and going, when I see that, every bit of doubt in me, dies. That is God. If any man has ever been God, that's Him. That's Him. Like that's the, and that's the story of John. That's the point we're meant to get here. That realization, that when you lay your eyes on the Lamb of God, crucified for mankind, that's what changes people. That's what changes Nathaniel. I want to give you a similar example, Nicodemus. Nicodemus is this Pharisee who comes to Jesus in John chapter 3. And he comes to Him in the night, because he's kind of embarrassed about it, because Jesus is kind of an outcast. And Nicodemus is kind of an important guy. And he comes, and he has this, he has a theology debate with Jesus. And Jesus is like, Nicodemus, like what don't you understand? And Nicodemus just cannot wrap his mind around who this Jesus person is. He's interested, but he has his reservations. And so Nicodemus just kind of disappears from the story. And then what happens in John chapter 19? Nicodemus witnesses the crucifixion. And then it's recorded that he's one of the two men that brought a lot of money worth of oils and things like that to dress and prepare the body of Jesus for burial. Nicodemus was there to bury the body of Jesus. It's sort of like what the centurion says in the book of Mark. Surely this man was the Son of God, as Jesus utters His last breath and dies. And that's what happens in the heart of Nicodemus. Surely this man is the Son of God. He's awoken to that reality.

Isaiah chapter 52. It says, See, my servant will be successful. He will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted. This is a prophecy about Jesus. We're like, yeah, he's going to be lifted up. He's going to be shown to be the high and exalted one. How? Read the next verse. Just as many were appalled at you, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man and his form did not resemble a human being. And it's in the very next chapter that Jesus is prophesied about and called the Lamb of God. There's a really simple claim here. My servant is going to be high and exalted. How? By being so disfigured that he's not even recognizably human anymore. It is in the crucifixion that God has revealed to us to be truly great. In Revelation chapter 4, there's this really similar moment. There's this heavenly scene where God is being worshipped by angels and saints. I mean, they're like celebrating like crazy. And so it's the angels and the saints that are worshipping. And then we switch just a chapter over to Revelation chapter 5, and it's continuing this narrative. But something happens where the courts of heaven like literally erupt in a way that they weren't before. It says thousands and thousands of angels are singing now. And then he says, I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them begin to sing to God. And so the question is what happened in this one chapter span for everything in creation? In heaven and on earth to respond this way? Really simple. Revelation chapter 5 verse 6. Then I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne. And then everything changes. The room erupts because the Lamb of God enters. And so the question this morning is how will you respond? That is what the revelation of the Son of God who was the Lamb of God. That's what it's meant to do to the human heart. Can we all stand up?

Really quickly, I want to go back to John chapter 1. Circle back where we kind of skipped. Verses 4 and 5. Here's what it says about Jesus. 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. Those two words are really important. Life and light. We're going back to Genesis. Right? Genesis chapter 1 verse 3. God said let there be light. And then in Genesis 2 verse 7. He breathes the breath of life into Adam. So those are two really important callbacks to creation. So what's the point of all this? John's message is that the Creator God, has come into our world and that he is answering to the problems of our world as it has gone mad. N .T. Wright says this. The word challenged the darkness before creation and now he comes to challenge the darkness that is found tragically within creation itself. So just like in Matthew, as Pastor Jake emphasized last week, John here is emphasizing the offer of Christ for recreation. To be made something new. Let me read to you verses 10 through 13 and then we'll be done. It says 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. To those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. Jesus through his cross has offered us new creation. But the world did not receive him. So there's two kinds of responses you can have to Jesus. You can have a hard -hearted response. He says no that doesn't really make sense to me. I'm not really interested in that. Or you can, oh, this man Jesus wasn't just any figure. He's not just a religious figure. This is the ultimate reality of everything that's ever happened and ever existed. Put on flesh and entering our world to pay for our sins so that we can be one with him. The cross with great force has silenced forever any boast that darkness and death might have uttered. When we look upon the word made flesh, crucified and raised to life, the creator God, the lamb, the one who was slain and yet triumphant, we can cry with Paul, he says something so brilliant. Oh, trampled death, where is your sting? We can jump back into Revelation. We can cry with everything saying, worthy is the lamb that was slain. So my question for you morning is, will you join this song? Will you live a life that joins together with this love song to the lamb? Let me pray. Jesus, we love you. We adore you. Father, I just pray that you would draw from us a profound awe. And worship and love for the lamb of God who was crucified for our sake. I just pray like, Jesus, thank you so much that you came into our world, that you disrupted our situation, and that you have given us this offer to become children of God, to be recreated, to become something new, to join you in your death and to rise again with you, to be made forever changed. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God, that you love the world so much that you sent your son to get involved and to put things right. Thank you, Lord. We praise you. We worship you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

So quickly, I just want to do one thing really fast. If you're in this room and you're like, man, I am not following Jesus that way. Jesus is not. If this is true about Jesus, that he's the lamb of God and the son of God simultaneously, I recognize that that sort of demands something from me. That demands a real response, not just like an intellectual recognition of some historical event, but actually deciding that my life needs to be oriented towards that. That this man, if he's really true, he's really worthy of everything that I have and everything that I am and every day that I will ever live for the rest of my life. And so something needs to be changed in the way that I am shaping my life toward or not toward God or away from God. So if this morning you're like, I want that. I want that right that Jesus has offered, that I might become a child of God and be recreated, that I have not experienced that. And you're like, I need that right now. If there's anyone in the room, you're like, please, please, oh my goodness, I need that from God. Would you just raise your hand? All kinds of people. Courage. Perfect.

Is there anybody else?

Okay, I'm just gonna invite us to pray. By the way, if you are, if you're getting baptized this morning, you wanna go like prepare, do that thing. You guys are like good to go do that right now. Probably the best time to do that. I'm just gonna invite all of us to pray this together. Cool. So can we all just say, can we all just pray this together? Say Jesus. I recognize who you really are. Your power, your beauty, and your love. And I choose this morning to follow you, to respond rightly to Lamb of God, to the word who took on flesh. I acknowledge you are the meaning of my life. You entered my world and you took on my suffering. You came into my humble position you could change everything. So I give myself to you. Jesus' name, amen.