[This is another in a series of stories I plan to post between now and Christmas or till the end of the year. This is from my book, Once for a Shining Hour, available through amazon.com in paper or Kindle.]
True story: A boy in the second grade was a Methodist preacher’s son. The boy’s mother was like most mothers in wanting her son to stay clean and healthy. One rainy day, the boy came in for supper, covered in mud. His mother told him to take a bath, warning him, as she often did, that he was likely to pick up germs when he played outside in the dirt. Because he had heard this so often, he blurted out, “All I ever hear in this house is germs and Jesus.”
Children may wonder why all the talk in church is about Jesus. But Jesus really is -- or should be -- the main subject for Christian teaching and preaching, most especially at Christmas. So the boy hearing the squirrel story may have been on the right track after all: “Since we’re in church, it must be Jesus.” Or, to paraphrase, “Since we’re at Christmas, it must be Jesus.”
The whole New Testament never gets far away from Jesus, and, of all the books beyond the Gospels, the little letter called First John probably has more about Jesus per square inch than most others.
First John tells the Christmas story, but in a distinctive way. There are no shepherds, no angels, no Wise Men; not even Mary and Joseph make an appearance. But Jesus is there in the opening verses as the very Son of God, one the first readers had known intimately. They had heard Him. They had seen Him. They had physical contact with Him:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life -- the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us -- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-3).
To say “Jesus is the Christ” is a way of saying Jesus was truly a man among men. John feels it necessary to emphasize the full humanity of Jesus -- a man with a physical body, like that of other men -- because there were teachers who said Jesus was an apparition, not an actual man. The word Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah or Deliver. The Jews were looking for a Messiah, a man who would be their deliverer. They were hoping for a military and political leader to deliver them from the domination of the Roman Empire. So they weren’t prepared for the kind of Messiah Jesus turned out to be. But, again, when John stresses Jesus is the Christ, this means Jesus is a man, The Man they have been looking for. Not some ethereal spirit but rather, flesh and blood. That’s what John means when he says you are a child of God if you believe Jesus is the Christ.
But, alongside that emphasis on Jesus as a man, First John in chapter 5 also lays heavy emphasis on Jesus as the Son of God. In that final chapter, John calls Jesus the Son of God nine times. Nine times. In those nine references, he is saying this Man among men is also the very Son of God.
If you’ve raised children or worked with children at school or church or on sports teams, you know you usually have to tell them something more than once to be sure they hear what you want them to hear. For that matter, you often have to repeat yourself with adults. Educators say repetition is a most valuable form of teaching. If you go over something several times, it’s more likely to be remembered. So if John seems repetitious, it’s because he wants to be sure his readers understand and obey his instructions about Jesus. John probably would say, “It can’t be said too often that Jesus is the Son of God.”
This is beyond human understanding. It involves a leap of faith. When our grandson, Ethan, was eight years old, he broke a major supporting bone in his foot. He leapt off a piece of playground equipment which was seven or eight feet tall. He wound up on crutches and then graduated to a medical apparatus called a boot which enabled him to walk without putting pressure on his broken foot. Lots of children jump off high places, but the better way, the safer way, is to jump into the arms of a parent. That is a leap of faith, the confidence that Mother or Daddy will catch them.
In adult life, we face adult-sized dangers, perhaps comparable to a child’s false step which leads to a broken limb. Those adult dangers may be loss of a job which leads to loss of a house. Or loss of a significant life relationship through death or divorce or desertion. We may put ourselves in harm’s way, spiritually, through wrong moral choices. Whatever form those dangers take, John says, For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Once again, it’s all about Jesus. And we shouldn’t get far away from Jesus Christ as we plan the holiday which bears His name.
John was especially concerned about some teachers who taught that Jesus was not truly a man. These teachers had been in the church, teaching against Jesus as the Christ. Because they were against Christ, John called them Anti-Christs.
There were false teachers in that first Christian century who sought to detract from the wonderful story of Christmas as they declared Jesus was not the Christ, the promised Messiah. There have probably been similar false teachers in every generation. They are on the scene in our time. So we need those nine reminders from First John that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The final two reminders come in 5:20 -- And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life [capitalizations added].
That verse would be a good place to end the letter of First John. But there is one more verse which isn’t a nice, smooth way to end. Even so, we need this jarring reminder at Christmas: Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
John isn’t talking to actual little children who play in the mud. Scholars think the writer is an old man who has been the spiritual teacher and guide to the adults who first read the letter. They are dear to him, and he thinks of them as his children in the faith.
Some people in those days picked up more serious “germs” as they actually offered sacrifices at altars to gods of wood and stone. We are too sophisticated for that. But we have our own, more subtle, idols: bigger houses, bigger cars, boats, RVs, job promotions, and the list could go on.
We may idolize gifts under the tree: the latest in wireless phones, new portable computers with ever-new programs to connect us with the latest music or words from our friends.
It may be difficult for us to turn away from the mud and germs of these inanimate gods which are pulsing with promise of thrills and more comfortable lifestyle. But the call at Christmas in the twenty-first century is as necessary as it was in the first Century: Keep yourselves from idols.
Cecil Frances Alexander, the 19th century Irish lady who wrote the Christmas carol, “Once in Royal David’s City,” also wrote these words in the hymn, “Jesus Calls Us”:
Of the vain world’s golden store,
From each idol that would keep us,
Saying, “Christian, love Me more!”
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