Talk
BRO. BO SANCHEZ:
I’d like to call on the guy who will help me preach this. I’ve known this guy for 24 years. Before he was born, I already knew him.
Please welcome, my son, Bene.
This is the first time we’re doing this. This is history. We’ll not talk about coffee or dinosaurs. We will talk about John 1. Let’s do it. Let’s dive in.
BRO. BENE SANCHEZ: John 1 opens with such a monumental first verse John 1 says, “In the beginning…”
Do you know of any other book in the Bible that has the same opening? You’re right: Genesis.
So, what does it mean that John opens with the very same line that the entire Bible opens with?
BRO. BO: This is very bold for him to do that. He was telling everybody that if Genesis was about Creation, his Gospel was about New Creation.
BRO. BENE: That’s right. So, whatever John is going to be about, it’s going to be as important as the Book of Genesis. Whatever the story is going to be about, it’s going to be about New Creation.
Same Words, Different Perspectives
BRO. BENE: “In the beginning was the Word…”
What’s the Word? Who’s the Word? What’s interesting about the Gospel of John is that it opens with the same words as Genesis 1: “In the beginning, there was God. He created the heavens and the earth.”
But in John’s version, it’s “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”
I’m just going to give you a spoiler. John is talking about Jesus. But the way that John likes to tell a story, he wants to draw you in. He’s almost written this part of his Gospel like a song where there are verses and chorus.
He’s an artist, right? He’s drawing us in and he’s saving the big reveal that this
Word there in the beginning is Jesus–at the very end, right?
At first, John sets up the scene: “In the beginning, there was a Word, who was God, and is God.”
If you’re already kind of confused, this is just the first verse. The way to look at it is to imagine you’re watching a movie.
Have you seen behind-the-scenes clips of Avengers? You find out that the characters are not actually on some other planet. They’re in a big sound stage with a green or blue screen. There are lots of people with cameras and various assistants.
What we see in the movie is the edited version.
But when you search on Google or YouTube, you will see behind-the-scenes clips with the crew and how everything is being set up.
This is what I love about the Gospel of John. It’s almost as if retelling Genesis from a behind-the-scenes point of view.
BRO. BO: So, Genesis 1 and John are about the same story.
BRO. BENE: The same story but from a different perspective, from a different camera angle. Isn’t that cool?
God’s Word
BRO. BO: Genesis 1 only showed God creating the universe. John 1 was about the same thing but the camera now captures God with someone else, a co-worker.
BRO. BENE: Yes. It is the Word. John sees a space between God speaking.
When God creates the world, He says, “Let there be light. Let the dry land separate from the waters.”
In between what God says and the act of creation, there is the Word. That Word, that space in between, that’s Jesus.
BRO. BO: So, John sees Yahweh, a space, and the Word of Yahweh. He gets that from reflecting on the Old Testament.
BRO. BENE: That’s right. John doesn’t come up with this. John is a Bible nerd.
He’s a grown-up reading the Scriptures. When you read the Book of Proverbs and the Book of Psalms, you see this picture of God’s wisdom helping create the universe.
On the first page of Genesi s, Jesus is already there. He is God’s wisdom.
He is God’s Word: “All things that came to be came to be through Him. Without Him, nothing came to be. What came to be through Him was life. This life was the light. The light of human race. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
What a poet, right?
BRO. BO: We’re just in the first verse.
BRO. BENE: We’re just in the first two verses and John is like waxing poetry. Maybe it’s worth
mentioning that not all people here, including myself, don’t really read a lot of poetry.
Today, I just see memes on IG (Instagram) reels. But poetry and IG reels are almost the same thing.
If I say, “Wow, that’s very cutesy, very demure.” You know what I’m talking about, right?
The way that biblical poetry works is the same thing.
When John says, “In the beginning..” to his audience, they all know that he’s talking about Genesis.
Then he starts talking about the Word who is God, and with God, and created all he’s talking about in Proverbs. Very cutesy, very demure. It’s the same thing.
Memes are the modern version of poetry. I hope you’re following. This is how we do the talks in Youth Home. We usually have lots of memes on the screen.
The first set of verses about life and light describes what John wants to introduce us to– which is to see this Word.
This Word is the Light that is entering into the darkness of our situation or of our world–wherever you might be coming from.
Hey, guess what? The Light is here. He has been here from the beginning.
There is a guy coincidentally named John. It’s not the same John who wrote this Gospel.
I guess John thought that this guy had a cool name because they had the same name.
BRO. BO: What Bene is trying to do is to give you a pattern. There is a pattern and a prologue. The first few verses were about seeing. This one is about hearing.
BRO. BENE: Exactly. I mentioned this a while ago. John 1 is written like a song. If you’re a good songwriter, you’ll make the verses about just one thing. A while ago, we read the first verses– and they were all about light– about vision.
We’re now on the second verse– about hearing. Because John is going to talk about the Light– coincidentally the same name as the guy who wrote this book.
Come and See
BRO. BO: I think John The Author talked about John The Baptist. But he was referring to himself also because they had the same mission.
BRO. BENE: Probably.
By the way, Friends, I want to mention this because this might be confusing you. When you’re reading the Gospel of John and he’s talking about
the beginning, and the Word, then the Light, then about a guy named John. We’re noticing the repeated words and the repeated themes because often, once we can identify the repeated themes, we can get what he’s talking about.
So, he’s already sort of telling you the story of what’s going to happen.
In this Gospel, you’re going to read about this Light who’s going to come into the world and people are going to experience this Light.
Does everybody welcome the Light? No.
You have the Pharisees and the Sadducees– the teachers of the law. They don’t really agree with what Jesus was talking about.
Interestingly, the people that you would expect would come around to this guy who’s claiming to be with him from the beginning– but they don’t.
Is that everyone? No. There’s going to be some people who are going to see, who are going to hear, and who are going to experience Jesus. They do so by the power of God– not because they were born a certain way. Not because they were very smart. Not because they were rich. Not because they were religious.
But through the power of God, they were going to become family– which is super cool because that’s what we talked about last Feast series.
We were talking about Family and how God is creating a bigger Family.
John is in on this and he’s telling you that if you believe in this Light, He has the power to take you from your broken past, from your mistakes, from wherever and whatever background you might come from. He’s bringing you into God’s Family. Super cool.
Come and experience Jesus. He’s going to restore your family. He’s going to welcome you if you’re somebody who doesn’t have a family. He’s going to bring you in into His Family.
BRO. BO: May we pause a bit and tell somebody beside you, “Come and see Jesus. Come and hear Jesus. Come and experience Jesus.”
The New Tabernacle
BRO. BENE: I hope you feel that there’s a sort of a rising tension to John’s words. He’s building up a story. It’s like a symphony where the drums are getting a bit louder. The music is increasing. He’s sort of stepping up the dial:
The verse says, “And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
The very word from Verse 1. This Light, this Life of all Humanity.
He became human. He became visible. He had a body and He set in a tabernacle. In the original Greek, the word for dwelling is literally the word, tabernacle.
Remember when we were going through Exodus, we talked about how God came to live with the Israelites in a tent. That’s the word. Jesus “tented.”
BRO. BO: Dwelling means tent. It’s the tabernacle of God.
So, Jesus is the New Tabernacle.
BRO. BENE: Jesus became the living, breathing, walking human tabernacle where people could experience God’s Presence and God’s Light. Where they could see God’s Presence, face to face.
That’s why John says, “And we saw the glory, the glory as of the Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
Description of God
BRO. BO: In terms of seeing the glory of Jesus, I think John was referring to the Resurrection and the Transfiguration– which the Israelites saw. He was kind of introducing these to the people.
BRO. BENE: Absolutely. He’s using an interesting word in the original language. He’s using the word kessed— which is the descriptor of God.
When the Bible talks about who God is, this is the word that they use to describe God.
BRO. BO: In Hebrew, it’s kessed. It’s very difficult to translate into English. There’s no specific word for it.
BRO. BENE: Every time you encounter the word kessed in the English Bible, they always use a different word to translate it. Sometimes it’s steadfast love, loyal love, unfailing love. But it’s referring to how God doesn’t give up on His people. It comes from Exodus 34.
The word love and faithfulness is the Hebrew word kessed.
BRO. BO: You were saying that this verse is the most quoted verse.
BRO. BENE: It’s the most quoted verse in the Old Testament. It is the most repeated than any other verse in the entire Bible.
BRO. BO: So, biblical writers would always quote Exodus.
BRO. BENE: This is like our John 3:16 today which almost everybody knows. Among Jews, almost everybody knows Exodus 34:6.
So, John being a Bible nerd, has to include that, and he puts it in a very strategic part. He’s talking about Jesus becoming flesh, becoming embodied. Guess what?
He’s God’s kessed. He is the fulfillment. He’s the epitome of God’s loyal love for His people. He is the very character of God.
Back to John
Let’s keep going.
We’re going back to John:
If you’re reading this straight, you’ll note it seems that he keeps on shifting topics. Why is he talking about John again?
There is clearly a pattern here.
BRO. BO: This will be mind-blowing
BRO. BENE: In a few moments, we’re going to show you how it all fits together. But take note that John is not just randomly changing topics. He’s putting this together for a certain purpose.
I was telling you a while ago there is a pattern to what John is doing. If you notice, John begins with an introduction, Verse 1: In the beginning was the Word.
Stanza 1:The light shines in the darkness
Stanza 2: He starts talking about John.
Stanza 3: He starts talking about how Jesus came into the world so that we can experience him.
Stanza 1 is about seeing. Stanza 2 is about hearing what John has to say. Stanza 3 is Jesus coming into the world for Him to experience the human condition and for us to experience the true kessed that can only come from Jesus.
If we look to the next set of verses, “And the word came to be flesh.”
What is this about? Jesus becoming something that we can see. It’s about seeing.
In Stanza 5, we return to John where he is testifying. It’s one level higher. He’s crying out. Have you ever seen this guy like in the jeepney who starts like preaching to you and you’re like trying not to look at him?
But here’s John testifying and crying about this Light. It’s about hearing again.
The last couple of verses –16 and 17: “From his fullness, we all have received. We’ve experienced.”
Do you see the pattern?
Seeing (peach) Hearing (green) Experiencing (blue)
It’s just an easier way to remember it. Stanza 1 matches with Stanza 4.
Stanza 2 matches with Stanza 5.
So, if you’re confused about why he goes back and forth from John, and then he talks about other stuff, and then back to John, it’s because the pattern is like this.
Isn’t that cool?
BRO. BO: This pattern is exactly the pattern of Genesis 1.
How Gospel Authors Think
BRO. BENE: So, let’s pretend that you haven’t seen it yet.
So, Genesis opens with an introduction: In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the Earth.
Then, you have six days of creation, just like the six stanzas in the Gospel of John.
You have God separating light from darkness. You have God separating the waters above and below. You have God separating the dry land from the sea. Those are days 1,2, and 3.
On days 4,5,6, God creates the stars and the moon which also give light. God fills the waters above and the waters below with fish and birds.
On day 6, He creates the animals and the humans to fill the dry land.
So, Day 1 matches with Day 4. Day 2 matches with Day 5. Day 3 matches with Day 6. It’s the same pattern.
In Genesis and in John, the stanzas and the days match with one another. In Genesis, Days 1 to 3 are about creating the spaces.
On days 4 to 6, God is filling the spaces with His creation.
In John, the stanzas are about seeing the light, seeing the word becoming flesh, hearing about this light, being testified by John, and experiencing it as he becomes the fullness of grace and truth revealed.
The second set expands on the first set. It’s almost like he’s saying that,
“As you read my Gospel, I want you to see and hear and experience it on a whole different level.”
As you keep reading, it’s going to go deeper and deeper. We’re going to see, hear, and experience it in a way that the meaning gets multiplied and expanded on. That’s the picture.
So, John is not just copying the first line of Genesis. He begins with,
In the beginning. He copies the entire structure.
What a Bible nerd! John loves Genesis so much that he copies the first page and puts it as the beginning of his Gospel.
That’s the reason we’ve been studying Genesis again and again and again in every Feast series. Because this is how the Gospel authors think.
A Crucial Difference
BRO. BENE: But here’s interesting:
John makes a crucial difference.
In Genesis, we have a conclusion.
On the seventh day, God finishes His
work. He rests He dwells with His creation. That’s Genesis 1.
In John, the concluding part of his prologue doesn’t feel like a conclusion at all.
It’s kind of weird.
He says, “No one has ever seen God who is at the bosom. A bosom is a chest.
Literally, the heartbeat of God.
The only person who has heard from God is the guy whose ear is planted listening to the heartbeat of God. That one has revealed … (dot dot dot). That’s not a great conclusion– but for some reason, every Korean drama episode ends to be continued. That’s how they make you keep watching the next episode.
John does this with the prologue. In the ancient text, he ends with what is the Greek equivalent of ending with a dot dot dot
BRO. BO: We don’t see this in English. But in Greek, Verse 18, the end of the prologue, is really dot dot dot. It’s a cliffhanger. It leaves us wondering when are we going to meet this Word and this Light?
It continues the 19th chapter of the Gospel of John.
BRO. BENE: We’re going to meet Him. When we turn the page and we’re in to Jesus, we’re going to hear Him doing His miracles and His signs, and He talks to the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus. But we don’t read the conclusion of the new creation story. We don’t reach the, It is finished. until Chapter 19.
BRO. BO: When He is hanging on the Cross and the last words of the Son of God is, “It is finished.”
Jesus Says, “I am Here”
BRO. BENE: John is so cool. The Bible is so cool. If John wanted to write a pamphlet with 10 reasons how to believe in God or why you should believe in Jesus, he could have done it. He could have– but he didn’t.
Instead, he wrote, In the beginning.
He wants to draw us in to meditate and ponder on the depth and the richness of what it means for the very reason for this universe’s existence becoming human.
Not just becoming human but becoming a friend. Becoming Someone who meets us in our darkness and meets us at the worst possible time in the middle of the night, in the heat of the day, when we’re hiding, when we don’t want anybody else to see us. He comes and He offers us a new kind of life that is so much better than we could ever possibly imagine. That’s who the Word is and that is the Jesus that John wants us to see, hear, and experience in this Gospel.
BRO. BO: Amen. Let’s give a big hand to Bene. I’m excited about unpacking John with you.
How many of you heard something that you didn’t know? What you just heard is nothing. We’re just swimming on the surface. The Pacific Ocean is 4,000 meters deep. I think we’re just floating on the surface and there’s so much more to uncover. But there’s one thing that John did that I want us to receive in our hearts right now. Genesis 1, darkness and then God creating the universe. John 1, same scene, he says, “There is something you didn’t see. I’ll show you. Takes another behind-the-scenes camera angle. Jesus has been there from the very get-go, from day zero.
My dear Friends, we all have experienced darkness and chaos in our lives. If you look back, you’ll remember that at that time, it seemed that Jesus wasn’t there.
But I want you to receive this Word in your heart right now: Light was there. You just didn’t see it. There was light in the midst of your darkness. In the darkest parts of your story, when you thought God was not there, and it was pitch-black darkness, Jesus was actually there. You just didn’t see Him, hear Him, and experience him.
Today, I want you to open your heart and trust Him that if right now, you are going through that darkness, Jesus is there. He’s holding your hand and He’s saying, “I’m here in your life. See me. Hear my voice in your heart. Experience my love for you today.”
