A sermon on John 1:1-18 by Rev Richard Keith on Sunday 3 May 2026
Who can you turn to in a crisis? Who do you pray to when life takes a turn for the worse? Footballers and cricketers might turn to the gods of sport. Gamblers might invoke the help of Lady Luck. And atheists and agnostics might pray to a God they say they don’t believe in. But Stephen prayed to Jesus.
In our second reading from Acts chapter 7, we see Stephen on trial for his life on the charge of blasphemy. At the end of his long speech he accused his accusers of hypocrisy — it is they, not he, who have resisted the will of God. In response, they picked up stones and hurled them at Stephen. And as he died, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this against them.” Stephen shows us that in our moments of crisis we too can pray to Jesus. As everyone’s favourite hymn says, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.” Our message today from John chapter 1 will show that we can pray to Jesus because of who he is.
What I’ve just presented to you is an introduction — and an introduction isn’t just the first few sentences a person says in a talk or writes in a book. A good introduction captures the audience’s attention by being interesting. It talks about things of vital interest to everyone. It makes you want to find out what happens next. But a good introduction also frames the discussion by raising the crucial issue at its heart. It’s not only interesting — it shows what’s at stake, and hints that what happens next is too important to ignore.
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the authors try to make sense of the life and death of Jesus and to show their vital importance to our lives. It’s interesting to look at the introductions they write for their books. The Gospel of Mark begins by showing that we can’t understand Jesus without looking first at the ministry of John the Baptist, whom God sent to prepare the way. The Gospel of Luke goes further back, showing that we can’t understand Jesus without going back to how he was born. The Gospel of Matthew begins by going even further back, showing that we can’t understand Jesus without starting with his great ancestors Abraham and David, and how Jesus came to fulfil God’s great promises to those men. But the Gospel of John begins by going further back still — showing that we can’t understand Jesus, we can’t make sense of his life and death for our lives, without going back to the very beginning of time and to the creation of everything.
John begins in chapter 1 verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John deliberately starts with the same three words as the beginning of the whole Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning when God not only made the universe but time itself, in that beginning of everything, the Word already was. The Word was not the first created being. The Word did not come into existence with the universe. He was God’s eternal Word through whom God made everything else. As Genesis chapter 1 says, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” As John himself says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” These verses show us that God creates by speaking. He puts his will into words and what he says happens. He speaks his command and it comes into being. He makes a promise and his promise is fulfilled. God’s Word, then, is the agent of his creation — it expresses God’s will, and that expression has the power to create.
So in John’s introduction to his Gospel he has already made two powerful claims. This Word, without whom we can’t understand Jesus, already existed at the beginning of time and was the creative force through which God made everything. But these claims are a drop in the bucket compared to the next two: the Word was God, and the Word was with God. In these few simple words we find one of the clearest expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity — one who is God yet is with God, distinct and yet fully divine, God with God.
John is hinting at what we’ve already assumed: that the Word is Jesus, the one he will name in verse 14 as the Word made flesh. And when we turn to the rest of the New Testament, we find the same astonishing claims made about him. As Paul wrote in Colossians chapter 1, “The Son is the image of the invisible God. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” And as the writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 1, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Like John, both passages make the same breathtaking claim. The Son is not a creature. He is not less than God. He is the Son of his heavenly Father, fully divine, the one through whom God creates and in whom God is revealed — the express image of God, the exact representation of his being. And yet he is with God: distinct, personal, in eternal relationship with the Father.
This, then, is John’s first message to us in his introduction: Jesus Christ is truly God. Not made by God, not less than God, but truly God. Because Jesus is truly God he can be our true light. As John said, “In him — that is, the Word — in him was life, and that life was the light of human beings. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot grasp it.” It cannot overcome it, extinguish it, or even understand it. Or as Jesus himself said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” It’s a wonderful promise — that we can have light, truth, hope and meaning, the light of life that dispels the darkness of evil and despair and ignorance. We can have this light because Jesus, the Word, is light. Not just a mirror that reflects the light of God, but a source of light, shining brightly from himself all the goodness of God towards us.
We human beings have light, but we are not the original source of that light for ourselves. We are only witnesses to the light of God, like John the Baptist, of whom John chapter 1 says: “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” In the beginning the Word already was — but there came a time when a man named John came. He was not God; he was sent from God. He was not the light; he came as a witness to the light. Yes, John the Baptist was a good man, a great man, brave and true and faithful. But he was not sent to be followed, or to start his own new religion, but to point to the one we should all follow. As John the Baptist himself said when he pointed to Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
This is our job too. We are not the light. We are not the hope of the world. There was a time when we did not yet exist, and when we die and go to our maker, this world will go on without us. But while we live and breathe, we simply exist to point to the true light, Jesus — to shine in the darkness not with our own light, but simply as a mirror reflecting his. We are not the centre of the world or its saviour. It is a humbling and a reassuring message: we are simply witnesses to him who is both.
Because he is truly God, Jesus the Word is our light — and for the same reason he can give us the right to become children of God. As John said, “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” Some people — many people — reject him. They deny him or ignore him. But to those who receive him, who believe him and welcome him into their lives, who confess him like Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” to them — to us, if you will receive him too — he gives the right to become children of God. What a great privilege, to belong to the family of God, to call on him as our heavenly Father, to live in the hope of receiving our inheritance of eternal life and of all the blessings of heaven. But this privilege is not ours by right of birth. We have not earned it or deserved it. Instead, it is a gift from Jesus, who has the right to give it because he is God with God — truly God himself and God’s eternal Word. He is our light and life, and for this reason Jesus is worthy of our faith and of our deepest trust.
Jesus, God’s eternal Word, is truly God and truly human. As John said, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In the beginning of time the Word already was, but at just the right time he became flesh — our flesh, with all its needs and wants and weaknesses. He didn’t just wear our humanity like a fancy dress costume that he can put on and take off any time he wants. He became it. He made his dwelling among us — not like a tourist visiting a developing nation on holiday, but permanently. He lived our life from beginning to end, and when he rose triumphant from the grave he ascended to the right hand of his Father and took our humanity with him. The one in heaven that we can turn to in a crisis, that we can pray to when all other hope is gone — he lived a real, true human life with all its joys and pain and tears.
When life is hard, when it pushes us to the limit of our human resources, it is easy to feel that God is far away and cannot understand what we are going through. But our Lord Jesus knows. He knows what it is like to be hungry and tired, to be misunderstood and betrayed, to pray in the darkness and not receive what he asked for. Our Lord in heaven knows. He has walked our road, borne our weakness, suffered our grief, and carried our humanity into the presence of God.
Because Jesus is God’s eternal Word — God with God, truly God and truly human — he makes God known to us. As John said in chapter 1, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Like John the Baptist, Moses was a good man, a great man. God spoke through him, and he led his people out of Egypt through the wilderness. But still only human, he was prone to doubt and prone to outbursts of anger. Through Moses God gave his law to his people, but through Jesus Christ has come grace and truth. He was not merely the channel of God’s Word, but God’s eternal Word at the right hand of the Father. For in the beginning he already was; at the right time he became flesh; and today, right now, he is at the Father’s side — in deep and abiding relationship with his Father, one who knows us by name, one who knows what we go through, with access to his Father’s will, interceding on our behalf.
No one has ever seen God. I believe I have heard his voice. I believe I have read his promise to me in the words of the Bible. But I haven’t seen him. Even Moses longed to see God face to face, but only saw his glory reflected as in a mirror. But Jesus is God the One and Only, and he has made God known. What the philosophers argue about, what the prophets glimpsed, Jesus makes known — because he is God’s eternal Word. He is truly God. When we see him, we see God. When we hear him, we know God’s will. When we see him at work, we know what God can do. And he is truly human, so we see God in ways that we can truly understand. Jesus is God’s promise to us that we have one at the Father’s side who is on our side, and that where he is, we will be also.
Who can you turn to in a crisis? Who can you pray to when life takes a turn for the worse? Like Stephen, we can pray to Jesus, because he is Lord. He is not a distant stranger or a powerless teacher long dead and gone. He is God’s eternal Word, through whom all things were made. He is the light that shines in the darkness. He is the Son who became flesh and made his dwelling among us. He is the one who walked our road and knows us by name. He is at the Father’s side, and he has made God known.
So when life is dark, when sin accuses us, when grief overwhelms us, when death itself draws near, we do not cry out into the darkness hoping someone might hear. We pray to Jesus. And because he is truly God and truly human, he hears us, he understands us, and he is able to bring us safely home.