Introduction

Up and down the land this Christmas there will have been people getting hauled along to one religious ceremony or another ‘because it’s Christmas’.

No doubt they’ll be taken along ‘for the carols’ or ‘because it’s lovely’ or … well, you can fill in the gaps.

And there’ll very likely be thousands of people sitting on the pews just toughing it out through this annual bit of ecclesiastical suffering just waiting and longing for it to be over … their minds running over why on earth it is that Christians have to keep bringing God into Christmas.

It’s a perfectly good story, so (they reason) why does the bloke (or bloke-ess) up the front have to spoil it like that … EVERY time?!

1 John 1:1-4 has got the answer for that one, and it is to make the joy we can all have both at Christmas and year round … to make that joy complete.

Here’s what he says:

1 John 1:1-4

“That which was from the beginning,

which we have heard,

which we have seen with our eyes,

which we have looked at and

our hands have touched

—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

2 The life appeared;

we have seen it and testify to it,

and we proclaim to you the eternal life,

which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard,

so that you also may have fellowship with us.

And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

4 We write this to make our joy complete.”

To start with, it’s because something has happened.

1) What has happened?

a) An event

1 John 1:2: “The life appeared”

καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἐφανερώθη

The verb φανερόω (faneroō) means to reveal, to make known, to show; to appear, to be disclosed, displayed or revealed

… to bring to light, to set in a clear light; to manifest, display.

Here’s the idea:

Let’s say that you are walking through Llandovery or Llandeilo or wherever one day and all of a sudden somebody throws a sack over your head (not a plastic one, obviously) and the next thing you know you’re coming around to consciousness in a room with a locked door and no windows … just a dim light hanging out of reach in the middle of the solid ceiling.

You can see, just about, but it feels like there isn’t much worth seeing.

(Please don’t worry, this illustration has a happy ending!)

In that room you’re pretty much unaware of your circumstances, your situation, you don’t know where you are, whether it is day or night, where your next meal or shave or cup of tea is coming from.

(And let’s face it, you can carry on for a while without food, but you can’t go long without a brew!)

There’s a little bit of light in your little space, but you are mainly in the dark about everything that could give you a sense of shape to life, you don’t know where you are or where this is all going to lead or how you are going to get through.

You don’t know what to do with the situation you are in, and there is nothing you can do to show you any point or purpose or way out of it.

Until, that is, someone turns the key in the locked door and comes in from the outside to show you the way into light beyond that dim bulb … a life beyond just wondering how to get by and exist.

John says ‘Ah, but …’

1 John 1:2: “The LIFE appeared”

And the sad thing is that thousands of people dragged to church this Christmas won’t have HEARD that, either because the people talking in the religious building they attend have lost the plot, or because they are sitting there unwilling to hear that the way out of the dark, enclosed, confusing place they find themselves in is to be found in the LIFE wrapped up in the incarnate Son of God.

I said ‘incarnate’ there.

It’s a God word.

It means something important, though.

What does it mean?

Well, you know what chili con carne is?

It’s chilly with MEAT on it, isn’t it?

Jesus is described that way in Scripture … the baby in that manger and the man He became is quite simply ‘God with Meat on.’

‘And don’t try telling me He’s not’, says John, ‘because I’ve seen it’.

If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck … what do you reckon it is?

I’d say it’s a duck!

John is going on here to say we all witnessed the event of His coming and

He walked through Galilee doing stuff that looked like He was God.

He talked throughout the course of three years we spent in close quarters contact with Him like He was God and backed it up by being able to still storms, heal the sick and raise the dead by His simple Word of command.

He LOOKED like the eternal life that was bringing light to the confusing darkness our world had been simply sat in … and we were witnesses of it (says John).

b) A WITNESSED event

This event of the life being REVEALED to us, we heard it, saw it, man we even TOUCHED it (remember Thomas and the wounds in His side?)

1 John 1:1: “which we have heard,

which we have seen with our eyes,

which we have looked at and our hands have touched

—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life”

Almost unique in the religions this world has on offer, the Christian faith is explicitly a faith that stands or falls on its eye-witnessed, historical reality.

John is totally signed up to that.

We’re talking (he says) about our five senses … not that ALL of those are called upon to support this historic faith, but John is talking as someone who not only heard saw and touched but as one who could also (if it were relevant) tell you what the incarnate Jesus SMELLED like!
I’m not sure about the fifth sense … whether John would have known what the incarnate Lord TASTED like.

But the Incarnate Christ was real enough, historical enough, that if John HAD for some strange reason licked Him the point is that, yes, John could have told you what the Lord tasted like!

He was THAT real, we’re talking about Someone we were THAT close to, that involved with, someone THAT known to us, says John.

He APPEARED in the flesh, and we KNOW it because our senses picked Him up and we speak of what we KNOW up close and personally.

So as one who really KNOWS the reality about Jesus what is it that you wish to tell us, to proclaim or to announce to us John?

c) This event was an event that brings life

1 John 1:2 “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”

John’s life … Peter, James, Paul and ALL the Apostles lives along with thousands of people who came to see that life was to be had in Jesus … were totally transformed in the light of what they saw and heard of Jesus by witnessing the Christ event.

And once you’ve seen the world by that light of the day He brings, nothing ever looks so dark and confusing and unmanageable again.

How come?

Because all the things that confused and perplexed us in that room we were locked up in … all the questions and confusion and lack of point, purpose and direction we had back in that frightening space … those things are dealt with by the One Who comes in from the outside, enters the very place of our own un-nerving experience of reality, and unlocks that door to set us free.

And THAT’s why we bang on about Jesus at Christmas … Christmas in particular I suppose, but all year round too.

John is going to tell us exactly what that event of God coming into that dark room inspires in those Who’ve met Him …

2) What this inspires us to do

We miss a very great deal that we can’t allow to go missing when we miss out the hugely motivating force to live differently that the grace of God coming into the world to share and to redeem our humanity represents.

It is the INSPIRATION that the person and saving work of Christ that gives force to the call to Christian discipleship … to follow Christ, wherever and whenever He calls, to live and to die in His service.

William Carey is widely recognised as the father of modern Western missions.

He went to India, which was then quite a cruel and godless place for all its religiosity, with the message of the Christ Who had come to save the world … but the outcome of that was a deeply changed society in that country at that time.

But it was a passion for God and His Glory that brought this about, as Joshua Bowman writes (10 Reasons to Revisit the Missionary Example of William Carey, his review of Timothy George’s 1991 biography of Carey: ‘Faithful Witness’ https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/faithful-witness-william-carey/ ):

“God’s glory and humanity’s lostness were the primary motivations for Carey’s mission.”

Carey revolutionised the lot of women, children and the poor in Indian in his lifetime … inspired as Carey was to continue plodding on in the Lord’s service by the person and redeeming work of Christ in the teeth of hardships, dangers and opposition that were incredible, but more than matched by the wonder of what he KNEW of the reality of Hs incarnate Saviour.

Carey is just one of myriads who have followed on in the footsteps of the Jesus-preaching first century Apostles, inspired as they were by what the Christmas crowds in church services don’t see, to do what those crowds so resent … to do what?

a) This we PROCLAIM (says John)

An event leading to further real events that we personally witnessed …

And what we do, says John, about this event is we PROCLAIM it.

V.1 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Well what else will you do for those who haven’t heard or grasped such a significant, inspiring, life -saving and life transforming truth?!

They are still in the dark box with no windows and one locked door … and unless someone comes in from the outside to tell them the way out, there is absolutely no hope.

This, says John, we therefore proclaim, concerning … well, hear what he says

b) We proclaim: the Word of Life

This proclamation is not about some smooshy, sentimental stuff that is merely aiming to create for you some sort of feel-good factor.

That would be Buddhism, or as it gets called so often in our culture at the moment: ‘mindfulness’.

Nor is it about, making you feel good in another way … creating this satisfaction with yourself might be called some other world religion or philosophy.

We’re not involved in that sort of endeavour, says John, we’re here to proclaim to you the Word of Life!

And that message we prolaim has CONTENT:

1. 2 “we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”

And that content is bang on the money of our greatest need and weakness.

c) Specifically we proclaim this REALITY

1. 3 “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard”

Jesus is totally REAL!

(says John)

Now we know that is so because the documentary evidence for Jesus is actually as good as it gets.

We can talk about that at length but I will never forget sitting in the Exam Schools as an undergraduate listening to Professor Hugh Trevor Roper giving a series of lectures on Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ when this eccentric old chap (but pie-hot and famous historian in a poll dot bow tie) suddenly stopped in full flow and said … ‘Gentlemen (there’d been ladies in the university for decades but, love him, he hadn’t caught up) Gentlemen, I wish you to know that the best-attested fact in the ancient world is that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead’ … there was just a very slight pause and then he was flowing forward with his lecture on Gibbon again.

Jesus is REAL and too often we don’t give evidence of or bear testimony to the fact.

On the basis of what we’ve seen, heard and touched (says John) … we PROCLAIM Him.

The Greek word there is  ἀπαγγέλλω (apangellō) which means to tell, to announce, to bring news, to be a messenger

Do you see?

Somebody has come in from the outside with information you didn’t have, couldn’t discover from where you were by any means already at your disposal.

The herald has come from the King … ‘I’m that herald appointed and sent to come to you’, says John.

It’s a purposeful thing.

The point of my doing that, says John here, is three-fold …

3) Why are we doing this?

There are apparently two foundational reasons which together produce the big ‘effect’ or outcome … which is what they produce.

The first foundation reason John is proclaiming Christ to them is …

a) So that you may have fellowship with us

1 John 1:3 “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us”

This word ‘fellowship’ covers a range of meanings in different contexts but all of them around the idea of a close and warm association between persons … shared life … and then by extension: participation, sharing, contribution, gift, which is usually seen to be the outcome of such close relationships.

Of course, it took on a fresh meaning for brothers and sisters in Christ in the early church, but it’s interesting that John looked on proclaiming the Gospel to people as an opportunity to become good friends with them.

Why is that important?

Because I suspect that all too often in 21^st. century Wales we as believers tend to view proclaiming the Gospel as a way to lose friends, not make them, and we therefore hang back from doing this!

‘Mistake’, says John.

We go to people living in that dark box with a locked door proclaiming what WE have seen and heard from the incarnate, real, crucified, risen Lord … says John … and the first big bonus is that we gain fresh brothers and sisters in Christ and by doing so share in the eternal plan and purpose of God in this Gospel which is to bring all things together again in this broken world under the headship of Christ.

THERE’s a great purpose for living and for proclaiming the real, witnessed and decisive Christ event!

But there’s more.

This is not just a message that brings a horizontal benefit.

We do this also …

b) So that you may have fellowship with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ

1 John 1:3b “And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ”

The idea of proclaiming this Jesus is that you might have fellowship with us … and that will arise because OUR fellowship (together) will come about because we (together) with the Father, throughthe Son we proclaim.

This is a very concrete, down to earth illustration of what we’re talking about here but … try this:

Manufactured by Gents of Leicester … hanging high over the main concourse … Waterloo Station’s huge four-sided clock has been a popular meeting point for Londoners (especially those on a romantic rendezvous) since the early 1920s.

For those of a certain generation I might add that (although they don’t spell it out in the song) some say that the ‘60s band The Kinks had the clock in mind when they wrote their 1967 hit, Waterloo Sunset… you know the part: “Terry meets Julie, Waterloo station every Friday night”?

In fact bearing in mind that song refers to "Millions of people swarming like flies
round...Waterloo Underground" it may well be that they met in the
Underground ticket hall, from where they could take the York Road exit
and quickly reach the river.

But the thing about the clock was that it had good sight-lines and clear ways to leave quickly and unobtrusively …

1. a) it used to be (and still is) visible from the exit to every platform and
2. b) it was by the taxi rank which then ran between platforms 11 and 12.

Of course, given all of that it became the place where people on blind dates used to famously meet … as Del Boy and Raquel do for the first time in a very well-known episode of ‘Only Fools and Horses’!

But the funny thing is, given its popularity as a meeting place, you’d expect there to always be crowds of people there milling around looking for somebody … but certainly in my experience there never were.

So, when I lived much nearer London and went up to meet somebody or drop something off, in the great sprawling metropolis of the big city with its hurrying masses of people, I’d often arrange to meet the person I was going to see under the clock at Waterloo station.

Now here’s the thing:

if I travelled to the clock from where I was and they travelled to the clock from where they were … well, we were going to be united under the clock.

It was both a rallying point and a meeting point … a place for coming together.

And if John’s readers travelled to where John was, under the headship of the Incarnate Christ … yes, you’re getting the picture?

They would be united in being together there.

And in John’s context, in the context of coming together to the Christ Who came at Christmas and was thoroughly historically and personally attested to by His followers (as He still is), the point of this proclamation is that people are rallied to Christ by it and they joyfully meet in that close association of fellowship there, and as John puts it … 1 John 1:3c “that our joy may be complete.”

c) So that (TOGETHER) our joy may be complete

1 John 1:3c “We write this to make our joy complete.”

It quite honestly frustrates the living daylights out of me that our culture makes Christmas a misery.

And it really, honestly frustrates even more of the living daylights out of me that His church seems determined to make Christ, and Christianity BOTH a misery.

John writes to underscore THIS fact:

(He uses an expression that covers both our joy and his joy)

‘So that your joy may be made complete’

Please notice, our joy is made complete as the result of what God does when the Gospel is proclaimed, as the living result of two things:

• Your having fellowship with God Himself because of what Christ came and did … coming to, rallying to and being united to God
• Your having fellowship with ALL God’s people in the here and now … deep, fruitful and life-enhancing fellowship … because of what He has done and continues to do in the hearts and lives of His imperfect but transforming genuine followers in His growing Church around the world … as we all come together not under a Station Clock but under Him.

‘Fellowship’?

Yes, it is an old word, but one that’s been usefully pressed into service to describe something that our culture with its emphasis on the cult of the self-realisation and self-actualisation of the individual has destroyed for itself, leaving so many of us lonely of heart.

And yes that old word ‘fellowship’ has fallen into disuse … but it means “communion”; or “association” (a reality shared in common, so in this case we might say it means “genuine association and life-enhancing relationship”).

It’s something that so many people in our Jesus-refusing era deeply LONG for.

If only they could work out that this is what they long for and where they could have that longing fulfilled!

Now who’d have thought THAT was what Christmas was for … the sort of life-transforming and fulfilling relationship with the God Who is real and fleshed up in Jesus, that creates life-transforming and fulfilling relationships with the rag, tag and bobtail crew that are His fellow-followers with us in His Church?

And WHO would have thought that it is the proclamation of the Gospel which so many sat in a religious building and resented at Christmas, that is the means by which this astonishing pair of relationships is brought about?

Conclusion

Like the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, the prologue to 1 John introduces the reader to important themes which will be more fully developed later in the body of the work.

In the case of 1 John, three of these are:

(1) the importance of eyewitness testimony to who Jesus is (cf. 4:14; 5:6-12),

(2) the importance of the earthly ministry of Jesus as a part of God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ (cf. 4:2; 5:6), and

(3) the eternal life in soul-fulfilling fellowship that is available to believers in Jesus Christ (5:11-12; 5:20).

The author of 1 John here in these verses

• begins the prologue with an emphasis on the eyewitness nature of his testimony.
• transitions to a focus on the readers of the letter by emphasizing the proclamation of this eyewitness (apostolic) testimony to them.
• and states that the purpose of this proclamation is so that the readers might share in fellowship with the author, a true fellowship which is with the Father and with the Son as well.

To guarantee this maintenance of fellowship the author is writing the letter itself … what John writes here in these four verses gives us the foundations of where eternal life is to be found … and it’s to be found in the coming into the world of a person, a specific person.

And the life and experience of those who saw, heard, even touched Him in reality … all of that supports and accredits the fact that if you want life (over the mere existence that so many have settled for in the assumption there’s nothing better to be had), then He’s the One.

He’s the One to be FOLLOWING onwards from this foundational truth.

And the fact that He needs to be trusted and embraced and then FOLLOWED is what John goes on to cover now in the rest of this first letter of John.

But for us the point to take away as our motto if we are believers for the way we approach living our lives throughout 2024 is this:

It is in the proclamation of the incarnate Christ whom we have experienced (hears, seen, and been touched by) that our joy, and the joy of those souls who are as yet stuck inside that locked box desperately needing a messenger with a key to come to them from outside, are to be made complete … to be made complete as we come together in Christ as to the Waterloo Station Clock, to be united under the headship of Christ.

How will that affect the way we set off into 2024?

And if that’s ACTUALLY the way we shape up our lives for 2024, what do you think we might reasonably expect to come of it?