April 28, 2024 Text: 1 John 4:1-11
Dear Friends in Christ,
You are familiar with Catherine the Great and Alexander the Great, but do you know Abbas the Great or Cnut the Great, or even that Herod was called Great. We have the Great Lakes and Great Wall of China. In the last ten years someone came up with GOAT – Greatest of All Time. We use this in sports. Is Michael or the Lebron the greatest basketball player. For football is the greatest a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver. In baseball, pitcher or hitter. The only sport where everyone agrees is in hockey, where Wayne Gretzky is known as “The Great One.” This all means they are greater than others.
Our text identifies the one who is truly and eternally and universally greater than all others, and it assures that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (v. 4)
“GREATER THAN . . . “
The world has always been made up of competing belief systems and ideologies. We might call them the “spirits of the age.” They want to claim us as their own.
John warns his hearers, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit.” Every belief system is not the same. If you are not connected to the “vine” of Jesus Christ as heard in our Gospel, then some other ideology is controlling your mind.
In our First reading today, we had Philip and the eunuch. The eunuch lived in a culture not connected to Christ. As Philip talked this man was changed and eventually baptized. He had overcome the “spirit of the age.”
The aged John wrote this letter around AD 80. The prominent city in this Greco-Roman culture was Ephesus. It was a diverse city by the sea. Its temples and works of art attracted tourists. Unbridled sexuality was expressed openly in the public theater and arts. It prided itself on religious diversity. Ephesus was internationally recognized as a “sanctuary city.” All of this challenged the faith of John’s “little children.” Therefore, he warned that these “spirits” could lead them astray. They were to test these spirits. Were they of Christ or apart from Christ. He stayed connected with them as they engaged in this spiritual warfare. Just like a parent today whose son or daughter leaves home to study or work in Chicago, New York, San Francisco.
“Do not believe every spirit.” The spirit of compromise or the confession of Scripture? The spirit of relativism or the “the way, the truth, and the life” as uttered by Jesus? The spirit of immorality or making the God blessed choice? The spirit of toleration or calling something wrong? The spirit of intimidation wrought by political correctness or standing firm in the pages of the Bible?
Test all of this. “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (v. 6). St. John says the “spirits” are discernable. How? “By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” (vs. 2-3)
It is and always will be about Jesus. Jesus is greater than…the spirits of every age. Jesus is greater than…the spirit that minimizes or denies human sinfulness. Christ dies for it. Jesus is greater than…the spirit of the antichrist working in the world. Jesus is greater than…our sin of giving in to those spirits in thought, word, deed. Jesus is greater…than our heart when it condemns us. Jesus is greater than…the world working to overcome us. Christ’s dying and rising overcomes.
As we confess Christ, God abides in us. The Ethiopian eunuch received Christ through Baptism. We too as we are baptized into Christ. John spoke about the Word of life. We see with our eyes and receive with our hands the crucified and risen body and blood in the Holy Supper. This greater than meal sustains us.
As the “Spirit of truth” moves in us we love one another. We bear Christ and confess Christ to one another and to the spirit of the age. We dispense with fear. We are not afraid of the world and who is in it. Holden told me recently of a group of men sharing Christ in and around the bars of downtown Bloomington on a weekend evening. Could you and I do that? They can. We should have it in us because we know this truth, “he who is in us is greater than . . . he who is in the world.”
Amen.