- Colleagues:
- Some clippings for the Sixth Day of Christmas 2004.Peace & Joy!
Ed Schroeder
- In the Gospel for Christmas Day, John 1: 1-14, suppose the word WORD were translated TALKING.
” In the beginning was the “logos” OK, in the beginning there was an utterance, chiefly oral. In the beginning someone was talking. The talking came from God’s direction. It was God talking. God was talking right from the very beginning. Everything that came into existence happened by God talking. And if God wasn’t talking nothing happened. When God was talking LIFE happened, LIFE that was the LIGHT for all people. This “talking” Light shines into the darkness , and the darkness cannot counteract it.
“The talking God sent a man. His name was John. He came to be a talker to get on the witness stand and talk about the Light that goes on when God’s talking. His goal was that all might trust that LIGHT by means of his talking . John himself was not the light. His job was to tell folks where the LIGHT was.
“The true light, the real thing, that can pull anybody, everybody, out of darkness, was moving into the world. The talking God was now IN the world (not OUTside talking it into existence as at the beginning). Even though the world came into being through God-talking, when God-talking showed up in person IN that world, nobody recognized him. The talking God came to his own turf, but his own folks didn’t welcome him. However there were a few who did, who entrusted themselves to his name . When that happened God gave them the right to call themselves God’s own kids. Their birth does not depend on blood-lines, nor on normal procreative processes, nor even having a male father. Their birthing comes from the talking God
“The talking God assumes a human body (with all its plusses and minuses), pitches his tent to live where we live. Result: We get to see his glory, the “GLOW” that comes from God Father’s unique son. How so genetically unique? He’s full of God’s Grace-talk and God’s Truth-talk.
“From his fullness (from the overflow) all of us have received grace upon grace. God was talking before through Moses. That God-talk was law. God-talking in Jesus is something else. Grace and Truth together.
“No one has ever seen God. Only in the “unique genes” of God’s Son is God so embodied. The Son’s talk comes straight from the Father’s bosom. He’s the one who “exegetes” the Fatherly heart for us.
That’s what the rest of John’s Gospel does: gives us the details.
- Christmas letter excerpts from a pastor in Thailand:CRASH SCENES OR CRECHE SCENES
Christmas Eve at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Nusa Dua was well attended, despite terrorist threats. Our “angels” wore guns.However, tourist numbers have been down here again, although there had been an upbeat forecast based on airline / hotel bookings. It seems there have been a lot of domestic & overseas cancellations. Ironically numbers of Australians planning to holiday in Bali took heed of the government’s travel warning for Indonesia & transferred to Phuket, Thailand, just in time to be caught in the devastation there.
More next time. Meanwhile have a grace-drenched New Year! Shalom.
- From Pr. Martin Yee, Lutheran Church in SingaporeGreetings from Singapore. Thanks for your concern. Yes, this earthquake and tsunami is devastating, many of us here are “traumatised”. Some parts of Singapore also shaken by the quake aftershock tremors altho no tsunami reached our shores thanks to Sumatra’s shelter.
However the Indonesian island of Nias was not so fortunate as it is on the flip side of Sumatra to us altho same latitude. One of our former LCS Co-worker Michael Christian is a missionary there right now. Yet to hear from him as communication to that island was cut. Michael is my good friend and former colleague pastor at Jurong Christian Church. I have been to that island with Michael previously and it was jolted by a Richter 7.8 quake offshore when I was there a few years ago. The ground moved under my feet and it was scary stuff. But this is Richter 9.0!
Some Singaporeans died and were missing too while holidaying in those areas, as thousands of Indonesians, Thais, Indians, Sri Lankans and hundreds of Malaysians. I have been to the Aceh province before with Michael meeting and fellowship “secretly” ethnic Indonesian Christians in that fundamentalist Muslim state. That Aceh province was badly devastated by the quake and tsunami.
My wife Betsy just came back 2 weeks ago from Madras India after a missions trip to help some street kids there and she could hardly believe her eyes what has happened after she left them. She is wondering how they are now, as they stayed near a shelter home near the sea.
As I prepare for my sermon on Jan 16th from John’s Gospel 1:19-42, I hear Jesus asking “What do you want?” v38. What do all these suffering people want? What do I want? Have I found the Messiah, the Lamb of God?
Tough questions in the eye of a storm!
