The Hunger for God

When we read the beginning of the Gospel of John, we find a very different story than the ones we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

The Gospel of John doesn’t have a Joseph and Mary story. It doesn’t have a birth story. It doesn’t tell us stories about the early life of Jesus.

The Gospel of John says, if you want to understand Christmas, you have to go back in time to the beginning of everything – you have to push up against the wall of eternity … and start right there.

“In the beginning was the Word …”

The Gospel of John is different because it assumes that your fundamental hunger – my fundamental hunger – is to know God. Simply put – the desire to know God is the central hunger of humanity … of the human soul …

As the disciple Philip expresses it later in the Gospel of John … he says to Jesus, “Show us God and we will be satisfied.”

Is it possible, this is what we want – above .. and beneath … and beyond every other desire … the hunger for God?

That’s the assumption at the heart of the Gospel of John … and I think it’s true … it’s true …

Now some people don’t like that …

Some people would rather not be bothered with this restlessness … this appetite for God.

And it is possible to get rid of it … it doesn’t have to be there all the time. It could be, if you find yourself becoming a little too concerned about God and things of God … you can go to a movie, go out to dinner, go to a party … maybe that feeling will all go away in a little while.

If you happen to have any really cynical friends, you can invite them over for an evening’s conversation – that might sweep your mind clean of God … for a while.

But it’s libel to come back again … the Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us, “God has set eternity in the human heart” … this craving for the eternal just keeps coming back … and if I don’t want to live with that … if I don’t want to pursue that … if I don’t want to respond to that … what do I do?

Well, one thing’s for sure … don’t go to church! Even if it’s just periodically for a funeral or a wedding or a baptism … don’t attend worship services! Especially not in a church that may offer a deep and attractive understanding of God - a church that devotes itself to feeding and satisfying that hunger for something from “the bakery of God,” that will keep my soul alive and searching!

Because if you go to such a church … something will be said … a text will be read … a prayer will be offered … a song will be sung – and it will start all over again …

“Whence my life?”

“Whither my life?”

“Why my life?”

Those are God questions … and the story of Christmas is a God story … and it begins with the assumption: I have this enormous appetite – denied sometimes … but not always – to know God.”

And the good news of the Gospel of John is this … You can know God! God is revealed to us … in the Word made flesh. The Word … the Word … now that may seem like a strange symbol … but think about it …

From first to last, the Bible uses the expression, “And God said .. and God said … and God said …” because the Bible and the culture out of which it comes, assumes the most profound quality of anyone’s life … is their word … your word … my word …

The most important thing you do in all your life, is to say something. There’s nothing deeper … nothing more profound.

When you speak .. and maybe later you regret it. But you can’t take it back. It’s gone. It has a life of its own … our words have this enduring quality!

I think that’s why it’s hard around the church to get people involved in responsibilities where you have to say something …

“Ahh … put me on a committee that cleans the church basement…”

“Put me on a committee that mows the grass …”

“Sign me up to wash the sanctuary windows this Saturday …”

“Well, I was actually looking for someone who’d be willing to say a prayer …”

“You mean pray in front of people … pray out loud … you mean in a room where there are other people … you mean saying things?”

The most profound, aching, painful thing you ever do, is to speak words that are deep and meaningful and important to you … and for other people to be listening to those words …

Now … what happened when God spoke at the beginning of time … “let there be light” … “let there be the sea and the dry land” … let the earth be filled with animals and plants” … let me form a human being from the dust of the earth and breathe my life into it …”

God spoke and God created the heavens and the earth – creation reflecting the very nature of God. All God has made reflects what God is like.

It’s true … it’s true ...

You don’t have to go to church. You could vow never to darken the door of a church again! You could nail shut the Bible!

But what are you going to do about the butterflies?

And the golden and red apples hanging on the trees?

And the star filled skies?

And the salmon jumping in the river?

Your new born, son or daughter, your new born grandson … granddaughter?

What are you going to do when you stop one morning on Dallas Road, overlooking the water … the mist rising off the ocean … the mountains in the distance …

What are you going to do about all that?

Scripture tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows God’s handiwork. Day unto day utters speech. Night unto night expresses knowledge … God’s Word going out to the farthest ends of the earth – NO! – the farthest ends of the universe!

The writer of the Gospel of John says, “God’s Word is in everything created!”

Now, if you’ve ever wondered, “What’s going to happen to all those people who’ve never had the influence of the church or the Christian faith.”

Don’t write them off. God hasn’t written them off!

All they have to do is take their cup of coffee early in the morning … watch the sun come up … an eagle soaring over the hills … surrounded by the beauty of nature …

How is God revealed to us?

The writer of the Gospel of John says, “Life and light to every person coming into the world.”

The image of God … like St. Augustine, “a restlessness until we find our rest in Thee?”

“In the memory” as theologian Rudolf Bultmann wonders as he discovers within the human soul … “a faint recollection of the Garden of Eden?”

There’s no way you can run so far, but when you arrive … there it is … that truth … God revealed to us?

The first chapter of the Gospel of John says, “This word that is in creation – this word that is the light and life of every person in the world. This Word of God … became flesh and dwelt among us – Jesus of Nazareth - the human expression of God.” But it’s not obvious to everyone – this light and truth, the grace and love of God are not obvious … people miss it … refuse to see it … refuse to acknowledge it …

It’s not obvious to everyone … I wish it was!

Because sometimes I want to say to people … “I believe God heard our prayer.” – But I have to be careful about choosing my audience when I say, “God answered my prayer.”

Because I know what people are thinking … “Well, it would have happened anyway … it’s just a coincidence …”

You pray for someone who’s sick … they recover from a life threatening illness … and somebody says, “Well how do you know she wouldn’t have recovered anyway, with good doctors and nurses and hospitals and modern medicine.”

What I’d really like is for God to answer a prayer some time, in widescreen, technicolour, high definition … so everybody will see it and say, “WOW!!”

But every answer to prayer I’ve ever had … God whispers … and most people don’t hear it … don’t hear it at all … I wish at times God could be a little more obvious!

I think that’s why people have such a strong appetite when a scientist says, “We cannot understand the whole universe without some recourse to a supreme being.” Wow!

We clip that out of the newspaper … stick it on the bulletin board! We email it to everybody … “Hey, we’ve got a scientist who says … there’s a supreme being …”

We like it when a physician says, “Well actually, to tell the truth, I gave you about three weeks … and when was that? Nine years ago!?’

Hey! We’ll write that down! The scientist helps us. The physician helps us.

Do you know what all those stories do for me … absolutely nothing! Zilch! Because, to me, they’re just some kind of attempt to shore up a crumbling faith … with some kind of scientific proof! Personally … I believe because I believe. I don’t have any proof … any more than you can prove that you love your wife, or your husband, or your kids!

Suppose some man sets out and says, “I want to prove to my wife that I love her and trust her.” What does he do? About three weeks of flowers and candy, and, “Here’s a brand new ironing board for you Sweetheart!” … and she’s going to say, “What’s going on here? Are you seeing somebody else? What does all this mean? I’m going to see my lawyer!” Don’t try to prove the really big things because they belong to the world of the spirit.

“Whoever will believe” … final proof isn’t necessary …

“Whoever will not believe” … final proof is never quite enough …

And the disciples of Jesus – they didn’t get it. It was not obvious to them. They had other agendas. They had ideas about what God was going to do, and what the Messiah would do, and what God’s Christ would do. And they were busy thinking those thoughts! One of them was a zealot. Belonged to one of those organizations that met for secret meetings at night in their homes, and liked to sit around sticky café tables plotting revolution – Simon the zealot – he was in the group. Two of the disciples carried machetes … just in case. And they kept talking big talk, and their favourite expression was, “When we make our move … when we make our move …”

So finally Jesus makes his move to Jerusalem and the cross, and they say, “We don’t get it … we don’t get it.”

And the disciple Philip says, “Come on now Jesus, just show us God and we’ll be satisfied.” And Jesus … Jesus says, “Philip … have I been with you all this time, and you don’t get it. What about feeding the poor? Do you remember that? Do you remember the children sitting on our laps? Do you remember those lepers coming, crying for help? Do you remember the blind men … and how their sight was restored? Do you remember Lazarus and his weeping sisters? Do you remember any of that? What do you think is going on here?”

“Well, show us God!” Philip says …

And so Jesus takes a towel and washes the feet of his disciples … and they say, “Well, what is this?” And Jesus picks up a cross and says … “Now do you get it? This is God … serving, loving, forgiving, caring, stooping, dying … for you …

“Show us God … and we’ll be satisfied!” they say …

And Jesus says, … to them … to you … to me … “Have I been with you … have you been in the church all these years … and don’t get it …”

Now the Gospel of John says, “That’s what really happened at Christmas … beyond babies, and mangers and journeys to Bethlehem … the very human desire to know God … and the fact that … we can … we can … we can know God … because he came to live among us … and he still does … he still does …