1 John is a book of the Bible that I keep coming back to - it continues to draw me in and challenge me. It represents the faith-based ethic and moral compass that I ascribe to. It reminds me, over and over again, that all things with God and all things with this world are grounded in love. It speaks to the power of love to create and renew life. This is an epistle that summarizes the end goal of a life of faith, and serves as a challenge to any counter-narratives that claim faith as something individualistic of self-serving. Since I return to this letter so often, I thought it might be nice to journey through it in an intentional way, and to let myself be overheard as I do it.
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John 1:1-4
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— 3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Life-goals: begin a sermon someday with such an amazing starting line that evokes both timelessness and timeliness, things ethereal (the word of life), mysterious (shrouded and then revealed), and tingling all the senses (what we have heard, seen, touched).
These opening lines are a grand invitation.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
In the beginning, the Word was with God and the Word was God.
What is tangible in creation and what is hoped-for and promised in new creation: all of this experience of the miraculous formation and sustaining of life, and abundant life, and flourishing, every moment where we say to ourselves, "could that be the Spirit moving?" --
--as God has invited and inspired our hearts, so do we aim to invite and inspire others with an infectious sense of wonder about this world and our place in it.
All are welcome to be a part of this fellowship of cosmic wonder.
All are welcome to be part of God's fellowship of flourishing.
And in the fellowship, in the wondering, in the experience of creation and one another, in the grounding of our lives and our hopes all the way back to the foundations of the earth: here is perfect joy.
What does joy-made-complete look like? What does it feel like? How does it exceed expectations and transcend imagination?
I'm captured by the idea that the act of sharing our faith and sharing our experiences of the divine comes not with ulterior motives or threats or even, yet, any expectation of changed heart or changed behavior (though we'll get to that soon!).
But rather, at the outset, we share the faith and hope that is in our hearts for the sake of joy.
Perhaps let us not forget, as we continue to read through this letter, that all of it is grounded in the hope, goal, and expectation, of complete joy, for ourselves and for all who receive the witness of our lives.