R-O-S is for Reflecting Our Source(s)

Divine Gene Therapy
John 1:1-18

(Preached at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 5, 2003, the second Sunday after Christmas.)

I want to begin by thanking you once again for this opportunity to share God's good news here at Holy Trinity. It seems as though this has become a habit --I'm asked to preach somewhere around Christmas, either right before or right after. This year, I'm especially glad that the day I was asked to preach is today because I love today's gospel lesson.

It is John's version of the Incarnation, and it is radically different from Matthew's and Luke's narratives. As you notice, there's no little child in a manger at all! Instead, John tells us, this is a story not just about one child, but about many children. Hundreds and thousands, billions of children. Children like you and me who get blessed by divine gene therapy. Matthew's and Luke's Christmas narratives gave us a biographical accounting of Jesus' birth. John steps back and gives us the big picture, a cosmic explanation of what was going on, the behind-the-baby-in-the-manger story.

To get John's point, believe it or not, modern genetic science is very helpful imagery. But first, I need to tell you about one important Greek word. It is monogenes. Monogenes is the word John uses to describe Jesus as the "only begotten," uniquely begotten, of the Father. You can break that down into mono and genes. I'm sure that's where scientists came up with the word genes. For Jesus to be monogenes means that He is made out of the same stuff, the same substance that makes up God. Verse 14 describes Jesus as being full of "grace and truth" -- that is a direct reference to God's attributes described in the Old Testament. God's hessed and emet of the covenant is God's mercy and loving kindness and his trustworthiness. These are the stuff that make up God, and that's the stuff Jesus has. How about we call that "Designer Genes"?

To set the stage for his cosmic explanation, John starts his narrative all the way back in time, before history began, before the world was created even. This Gospel begins, "In the beginning was the Word." Does that ring any bells for you? Yes of course. It's from Genesis 1:1, the creation story. John wants you to make that connection because he is retelling the creation story, but this time it will have a happy ending for everyone. Maybe we can call this: Creation, take two.

In the beginning, John says, we humans were genetically wired to reflect God's glory. We were "made in his image", we had Designer Genes, and so we "glowed" off the light that emanated from our Divine Parent. Maybe our cells were somehow radioactive. But something dreadful happened -- we call it sin, and we lost that genetic makeup. John doesn't go into great detail about how sin happened, he just states it as a fact. Instead of glowing, instead of radiating the Divine Parent's light, we became completely dark! A good way to picture that is what happens to stars when they die. Astronomers tell us that they implode on themselves and become "black holes." They're still there, but they don't give off any light anymore. They're dead. If any light approaches them, slurp, it gets sucked in and disappears into that black hole.

Sin made "black holes" out of humans. Martin Luther described this as "the self turned inward." Instead of being focused on, concerned with "the other," turned outwards, sin makes one focus on, or turn inward onto, oneself. Sin makes us self absorbed, selfish -- slurp -- black holes. To use our imagery, humanity lost their glowing Designer Genes and instead become controlled by defective genes which cause us to act like imploded, black stars.

Remember everything you learned about genes in high school biology? More and more, scientists are finding out how very much we are predetermined by our genes. Not only our physical attributes, but even some emotional and psychological attributes are programmed by genetic code. Some of us are happy with our genes, some of us wish we had been given other genes. One thing's for sure though: there is nothing in the world you can do to change your genes. Try as hard as I might, I cannot change the color of my eyes. I can fake it, with colored contact lenses, but I can't change them. And even though I would dearly love to be 5 foot 7 or 8, nothing in the world will ever make me any taller than the paltry 5 foot 4 inches my genes programmed me to be, even though I can fake that too by putting on high heels. When I visit my doctor and relate my parents' cardiovascular histories, he shakes his head and tells me, "Cathy, you've got bad genes!"

John says, that's the way it is with us humans. Try as we might, we can't alter our genetic make-up. We are black holes and we can't alter that fact. But it's not as if we don't try. We do! We search around for alternate "parents" who we hope can make us "glow" as if we were the Divine Parent's offspring. John mentions Moses with the laws he gave; Moses is a very popular alternate parent. We work hard following the law, we try to be "good," hoping that we'll give off some light, hoping that maybe the Divine Parent will recognize us as one of His offspring.

Cathy Lessmann Uncomfortable in Old Genes

But defective genes are defective. Nothing works, and nothing you or I can do can change them. That means there is nothing we can do to reprogram ourselves from being black holes into shining stars. And if that's not bad enough, the worst thing about defective genes is that they end up destroying life. They pitter out and we all end up dead.

John does this interesting combining of the images of light and life. Without light, there is no life, and vise versa, without life there is no light. Our defective genes not only program us to be black holes, but they also program us to die. Put it another way. Judgment Day is an Ultimate Paternity Test. Genetic analysis will be performed, and we will all find out that our genes simply don't match up to the heavenly Parent's. And you know what it means when you're found out to be a fraud. You don't belong, you don't have the right genes that the Monogenes Son has, that identify God's kids. You don't inherit anything that the Divine Parent gives his kids. That's how John diagnoses the predicament for us. Defective genes cannot change themselves.

The only possible hope has to come from outside intervention. Here is where modern science helps us understand John's gospel. Geneticists have come up with a radical new therapy involving gene splicing which can alter genetic codes. It involves cells being opened up and new genes being introduced, spliced in, so that genetic code is permanently altered. Of course those new genes have to be perfect; they have to have the desired characteristics to repair the old genes.

That's the big picture, the good news of Christmas, John tells us. God, out of his hessed and emet, performs Divine Gene Therapy for humankind, therapy that will alter black holes in such a way that they become glowing Kids of the Heavenly Father. But for this therapy to work, a perfect donor is necessary, one who is the Monogenes of the Heavenly Father. You can just picture Jesus raising his hand, saying, "Ill go. I'll be the donor." Jesus leaves his privileged spot -- on the Father's lap, "close to the Father's heart" -- and comes into the world, becomes enfleshed, in order to bring us back into the family by offering to give us his genes. We all know that this divine transplant didn't happen in a test tube. It happened on a cross, and it cost the Beloved Donor his life! When God raised Jesus from the dead, BAM! The transplant was in place.

When gene transplants "take," old cells get a new genetic makeup and are marvelously transformed. Altered glow-riously. What's the catalyst that makes the divine gene therapy take in you and me? The answer is remarkably simple. John says, when we "believe in his name" -- we call that faith-- the transplant takes! John says, "but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." Faith is what gives us the power, the right, the authority, to be God's offspring. Faith makes the divine transplant effective in us.

Now, on the Last Day, when the ultimate paternity test is conducted, Viola! Our genetic makeup looks exactly like the Beloved Donor's. The Heavenly Father will say to all his offspring, "Jump on up here in my lap, sit next to your brother Jesus. My, you kids just tickle me pink!"

Now, with the genes of the Monogenes Jesus transplanted into us, we have life and light. Our bodies, though still biodegradable, now have that radioactive glow about them that guarantees that they will not die permanently, but that they will someday live again. And for our present lives, since we have been so glow-riously altered, our lives now glow the Divine Light. And what might that look like to have your "lives all a-glow?" Probably it's the glow of that grace and truth, the hessed and emet which has been transfused into us. But now we glow, not just for our own sakes, but especially to lighten the paths of those who are still in the dark, so, as John says, that "all might believe through us."

That, according to John, is the cosmic explanation for the Incarnation. So you see, it's not just about a child, but most importantly, it's also about all us children -- how we are transfused with The Monogenes' genes.

Before I close I want to add two P.S.'s. The first is that it's important to remember that the divine transplant doesn't leave us recipients unscathed. The divine transplant requires that we "die" to our old selves, that we willingly give up our old genetic makeup to allow the transplant to work. Jesus called it "repenting." That can be mighty tough because those old genes had become so comfortable.

Second, because our old genes are so comfortable, we keep falling back into our old ways, as if we were still programmed by them. That means, we spend a lot of our time living in the dark instead of in the light. We do that when we worry about things, when loneliness or ill health or death or life's tough times confront us and we assume we're on our own, when we become self absorbed, when we despair. We live in darkness when we justify ourselves. My son Kevin pointed that out to me while we were playing cards last week; I was making excuses for loosing. "Mom, you always blame someone else!" We live in the dark when we blame other people or circumstances for our lives.

What to do when darkness seems to be taking over? Remember Christmas! Remember the Beloved Donor who came to earth to give you his genes and make you one of God's beloved children. Remember especially this promise from John that the darkness cannot overcome the light, that light is stronger than darkness. Trust that! And then you'll glow that light to everyone around you.

Cathy Lessmann