Life In The Blind Spot

 An Overview of the Epistle of 1st John

Today I begin a new venture with a new theme. 

Those of you who had followed in the past have seen me use comfort food as an inspiration to write from using that inspiration for my messages. This time, the inspiration comes from some of the therapy I have been doing over the last couple of years. The notion that there are things we cannot see, or have not simply turned our heads to realize that they are there, is what I want to focus upon as we move forward. Walking in the Light is a major component of the 1st Epistle of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved and the Apostle who is a major component of a Gospel and whom three letters have been attributed. Revelation, his largest and most scrutinized message stands alone as a tribute to seeing and hearing the Lord. The Light of the World was his best friend. Jesus was his Lord and Master. Jesus is everything to us and meets our needs in a plethora of ways. With that in mind, with Jesus at the center of the message, we want to follow into John's letters over the next several weeks and months taking some chunks and bites of the words. (I might never fully loose that food inspiration from my messages.) Hey, this is the Word of God, the Bread of Life. It feeds our souls and nourishes our spirits. We need this like we need a good breakfast in the morning. We need this like we need someone to sit down with and talk things through. Whether that person is a friend and colleague or your parents or a counselor and therapist, the need to take the time to look and see and understand what it is we are dealing with in life is of utmost importance. 

John and the other disciples would have had all of this at their disposal. If Jesus is our All in All, if He is our everything, then he would have been the greatest counselor of all. We ascribe that name to Him, especially at Christmas time when we are hearing words from Handel's Messiah. The inspiration taken from Isaiah Chap 9 says to it's listeners...

Start at the Beginning

I've been there. I go in to talk to someone, either for my own benefit or with a person who needs to unload in front of me, and the usual response is, "I don't even know where to begin." More than once I have been told or I have had to instruct the person I am speaking with, "How about we start at the beginning." For the Christian, Jesus is the beginning and the ending. The Alpha and the Omega, from the Greek. We look to him for all we have and without Him there is nothing at all. John was especially focused on the beginning. Creation and the splendor of all that God has done. John saw Jesus at the one by which God spoke all things into existence. We see that wording repeated as we work our way through the scriptures. 

As I work through those three scriptures, it seems as if each step take us back a little further trying explain where it all began. We know about creation. We know God created all things. How did God do that? We can see from Genesis that the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. John takes his understanding of Jesus a step further in the opening of the Gospel story. Jesus is the Word. God spoke and all things came into existence. Jesus is that life giving Word. He was with God in the beginning. Yes, Jesus is God. Jesus came from God and is God in the flesh. Fully God. Fully man. The Incarnation of God. If we are looking at this from the blind spot of our finite existence, it is hard to comprehend let alone believe.

If we could put ourselves in the shoes of a Hebrew person who was raised to believe that a Messiah would one day come and save their people from the hardships and trials they were facing, it might be hard to accept that this son of a Jewish carpenter was the person they were waiting on. Put oneself in the shoes of an everyday American, European, Russian person or any other ethnic or social climate where we are challenged to accept the idea that this One could be the person we need to make our lives complete and the problem of belief could be equally stifling. This is just one of the things we were cover in the weeks ahead as we move through John's words to Christian reading his letters. 

Bring It All Into The Light

This idea of light and darkness is one we see in the opening words of Creation from Genesis. The world is in darkness. There is nothing. Historically, it is thought that Moses complied the first five books of the Old Testament. If it was him, his wording there is intriguing. Chaos is a word we see in those first lines, depending on the translation we are reading from. Darkness. The face of the deep. It is an imagery that would stick with the Jewish mindset. The thought was that the deep was were the evil in life resided. When a person is baptized, the idea is suggested that they are lowered into the deep, being put down into the water. What we leave in the darkness, in the void, is our old self, What we raise up out of the water, back into the light, is our new self. We leave our sins behind. They are washed away. The illustration of light and darkness finds its way into what John wants to explain about our ethical and moral behavior as he shares about Christian conduct. Our blind spot can be a place that we do not see because the light has not been turned on. The Apostle will use wording like "walking in the light as He [Jesus] is in the light". Realizing we have a blind spot is a good place to begin. Understanding that there are places in our lives where the light does need to be turned on is of utmost importance. The are many issues and matters where we do need to look over our shoulder and see what's over there, back there, under there. Jesus would call himself "The Light of the World". He would then turn to his followers and tell them that they also were light. He described his church, his disciples as "a city on a hill". Not only do we need to allow the Light to shine through out our lives, bringing all things under his control; we also need to be light to the world around us so that others can find their way. 

A simple object lesson from a children's message could help make the point here. This is a flashlight. If you're going camping or for a walk in the woods and you think it might get dark, you probably want to bring one of these along. You might use a flashlight to see things where electric lights can't reach. Under a table or into the corner of a closet. If the power has ever gone out at your house, then you know how useful something like this could be. When you shine the light in darkness, what happens to the darkness? It disappears. The light takes over. Some people live in the darkness. They don't know how to have joy or goodness because they've been in the dark so long without Jesus Christ. But if you come near them and live life with them, you can act like this flashlight, and shine light into their darkness. Don't ever be afraid because God always provides the light.

Be Real. Love People. 

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" is an old adage we should be familiar with. Hate, strife and quarreling are ways of life they really haven't changed much over the years. John had to caution his readers as to what it meant to be a followers of Jesus in his time. It shouldn't be any surprise that 2000 years later people still have trouble figuring out how to get along. The matters that divide us truly haven't changed much either. Political issues. Financial struggles. People rising up and thinking they know more or quite certainly feeling superior to others. John was part of a group of twelve men who struggled with grasping the concept that servant-hood was the way to greatness instead of just stepping up and demanding a place of leadership. Throughout his Gospel and three letters, we see the emphasis repeatedly drawn out that a person needed to follow in the love that Jesus modeled for the people. The way people get walked all over in our modern world in this cat and dog fight to get ahead is truly no different than it would have been in the world in which the people were trying to hold on to that belief in Jesus. There was persecution. There were people who would turn on each other and drive others away. Sometimes people would divide over religious beliefs. I'm reminded of the stories of the history at Fairview United Methodist Church where I served from 2006 to 2012. The family church actually got started several hundred feet away, around the corner on Doty Road. The Fairview church is located on a piece of the old state route that runs along side 256 on the way to Pickerington. Apparently, some time in the early 1900s, there was a rift in the belief system of the congregation and some people at the mother church decided they needed to go around the corner and build their own building to worship in. This, of course, infuriated the mother church. I recall Nelson Deeter telling me stories that were relayed from his grandfather about having to put someone in the church at night time to make sure nobody from the original congregation came over and tried to burn the Fairview church down. And their story is not the only one like that. If you were of the German speaking persuasion back in the 1800s and you broke away from an original congregation over religious beliefs and the structure of the congregation's government in order to go plant a new church not far away (and that happened because people planted churches right in the area where they lived. So, the mother church was not far from the new church) the rhetoric that has shown in historical documents from such happenings shows vehement language. Words of passing judgement and condemning others to eternal damnation would ensue. All because one group thought themselves superior to the break away group. In the case of the Fairview church, all that remains of the original church on Doty Road are a few illegible grave stones where that building might have once stood. The Fairview congregation continues on to this day. 

The need to love other people is central to what we believe as followers of Christ. In this day and age, the more troublesome our political or governmental climate becomes the more we need to hear about the Love of God rescuing us from all of it. A couple weeks ago we covered a deep subject about reputation. I hope we can make it clear to the world around in Thurston, OH that this church is about loving other people. We will also make it clear that immoral and outlandish behavior will not be tolerated. Most people have appreciate over that years that I shoot a straight arrow the pulpit. I'm a good ol boy at heart I can cut up with the best of them. But, sometimes, (frankly, most of the time) that kind of talk and language should be found down at Weidner's Corner or at the Fairfield County Fair. It shouldn't be in this church building, especially during this worship service. It shouldn't be heard during anything we are doing connected to the name of Thurston United Methodist Church. What we do in here and around here has to do with the name of Jesus Christ. Our behavior as Christian people has to do with modeling the same love we see in our Lord and Savior. I have put my foot right in the rear end of outlandish people in my congregation. And, I have loved them and endured them and prayed for them as they have worked through the blind spots in their own lives. The pendulum swings both ways. We need to call sin what it is. We need to love people and shine the light. If we do one and leave the other out, we become a lop-sided group. Some groups emphasize righteousness and holiness while never showing love to anyone. Some groups make love the priority while never curbing any behaviors or language. We have to find the middle ground between the two and make following Jesus the most important thing we do. 

These are the things we will see through John's letters.
I hope your ears will be open and your hearts attentive as we seek to learn what it means to live in the blind spot.