JOHN034 - I Told You Narnia Was Real

John 1:15

You might like to get some copies of The Lightning-Fast Field Guide to the Bible for yourself and for others - here's a link that gets TMBH a little kickback: https://amzn.to/4pEYSS9

Thanks to everyone who supports TMBH at patreon.com/thetmbhpodcast

You're the reason we can all do this together!

Discuss the episode here

Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And I like the thing in storytelling where you have an innocent character who still has the capacity for wonder and to see beyond the practical, normal, boring things in life. And occasionally that innocent character will see something that is bigger than this reality. It's bigger than what people imagine the constraints of the world can contain. And they don't believe that innocent characters at first. And obviously, the most maybe apparent example of this that comes to my mind would be The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Lucy is the innocent. She's the one who saw beyond and was the first to discover that there was this other world of Narnia's just right there in the wardrobe. And of course, all the more practically minded people are like, no, that's not how that's not how wardrobes work, that isn't how things work. And it's a really satisfying payoff moment when Lucy finally gets to show them and is like, see, I told you there was something bigger going on here than what meets the eye. There is something more than just the physical. And I feel like we're getting a moment like that at the end of the prologue of John, here between John 1:15 and John 1, let's call it 18, where John the Gospel writer is using the voice of John the Baptist to say, I'm telling y'all, I know Jesus looks like he was a 33-year-old dude who got crucified, but there's more than meets the eye here. He's God in the flesh. He's not just some guy, he's the savior, he's the maker and sustainer of all things. He's the light of the world, he's the life of the world. He's again God in the flesh, making his dwelling among us. And so we get that little payoff here at the end of the prologue. John testifies concerning him. This is about Jesus. John the Baptist cries out, saying, This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. It's weird. It's almost easier if you just read that on the page. I tried to enunciate it in a way that it would make sense. So John the Evangelist is saying, John the Baptist said this about Jesus. And then the quote that John the Evangelist has John the Baptist say is John the Baptist kind of quoting himself from earlier. So there's a few layers here, but I think you're tracking with it. The quote is this This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me. You can kind of hear that Lucy, like innocent insistence on the part of John the Baptist, who's like, Hey, I've been saying all along this one that I am pointing to, this Jesus is not like other people. He is not like other prophets, he's not like other priests, he's not like military leaders, he's not like politicians, he's not like any man, he is fully man, but he's different. And I've been trying to explain it to y'all out here in the desert, but even though right now I look like the famous one, he is such a bigger deal than me. And it's interesting, the reason that John the Baptist in this quote gives for the guys, I'm telling you, there's something supernatural happening here. The reason that he gives is that Jesus is, though on paper by birth certificate, younger than John the Baptist. Jesus, according to John the Baptist, came before John the Baptist. Well, how does that happen? Well, for you and me, get conceived by the will of parents, and then we come into the world through the ordeal of birth, and then somebody slaps us on the butt or something. I don't know if they still do that when people are born, and then they write some stuff down on a birth certificate, and that's when you showed up. That's when you started. I mean, really, you started, I believe, at conception, but you know, legally, that's how we write that down. John is saying, guys, I've been telling you, there's something on the other side of this wardrobe. There's a whole other world here in this Jesus character. You haven't been getting it, you haven't been hearing me, but you're about to see it for yourself. Jesus looks younger than me, he looks less famous than me, but I'm telling you, he is the guy. He's the timeless one. Okay, this whole prologue is chalk full of gigantic ideas, claims much bigger than Lucy claiming to have walked through a wardrobe in mid-20th century Britain and found a magical snowy land with magical creatures on the other side. That's a pretty bold claim. This is an even bigger claim. The claim in this prologue is that this guy you have heard of, who was executed by the state named Jesus, is more than a man. He is more than meets the eye. He is movement number one of the prologue. He is with God and he is God. And it's been that way from the beginning. Big gigantic claim in this prologue that comes in movement number two. He made everything. He was not made, therefore, because everything that's ever been made was made through him. Big gigantic claim that's bigger than Narnia light claims number three from movement number three is that he is the light. He is the revelation of truth and that there is life in that. Big gigantic claim that is bigger than Narnia movement number four here in the prologue. This is God in the flesh, God taking on flesh and tabernacling with us, dwelling among us in a fuller way than we've ever seen or ever known before, going all the way back to the garden. These are gigantic claims, and woven throughout the prologue is the idea that there's this innocent. Now, John the Baptist is a weird innocent. I will admit that. Lucy is adorable in the books and in the movie. She's you know, got this long coat that goes down to her ankles, and she's got these little socks and little shiny shoes, and she's all done up, and she's worried because World War II is happening, and so she has to be out at this country estate, and she's a nosy kid who's having fun and being precocious and stuff, and she's nosing around and she pushes a little too far back into a wardrobe in a game of hide and seek and innocently stumbles on to a magical snowy land. And when she comes back out, nobody believes her, but she persists because she's seen it and it's real. And at one point, the professor who runs the estate fields some questions from Lucy's siblings who are real grumpy about Lucy's insistence on this thing that just could not possibly be the case. And the professor uh walks these indignant siblings through a series of possibilities. Well, is she does she lie about things like this? Well, no, she's a very honest little girl. Oh, okay. Does she seem sick? Is she crazy? Uh well, no, she seems to be in good health. Okay. Maybe there's a snowy land on the other side of the wardrobe. Huh. Well, a whole lot of people had uh run that equation with John the Baptist, apparently prior to the writing of John and prior to the arrival of Jesus. Remember, John the Baptist's thing had a whole lot of momentum before Jesus ever came on the scene publicly. And people no doubt had to work through the question of okay, John the Baptist is weird but credible. He's not adorable like Lucy, he's wearing animal skins and he's eating honey and locusts. He looks like a wild man. He's you know, like we talked about the other day. It looks like he's taking a Nazirite vow. He's living a very unusual life, but it's compelling. And the weirdness of his life backs up the extremity of his claims. And when people go out to the wilderness and they lock eyes with John the Baptist and they listen, they don't see somebody who's crazy. They don't see somebody who's lying. They see somebody who's making a ton of sense and is putting his actions where his beliefs are, and it's compelling. And all these fancy city types from the fancy cosmopolitan urban setting go out in the desert and they go through this ritual. They get baptized by the by John. And they they listen to him teach about this one who is to come, this arrival of the kingdom that comes part and parcel with this arrival of the one John is pointing to. And they're all having to run the same equation that the professor did or that the indignant older siblings did for Lucy and the Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe. John seems sane, though goofy. He uh seems like he's not lying. So so what is this? What is he pointing to? What is this thing going to look like? And here at the end of the prologue in John chapter one, John the Baptist is kind of getting his I told you so moment, like Lucy got when the indignant siblings discovered Narnia and planted their feet in that snowy land on the other side of the wardrobe, just like Lucy said was the case. John is saying, I told you this guy looks younger than me, but he predates me. He isn't like us, even though he's like us, this is who you need to be paying attention to. John was saying this stuff up and down when it wasn't popular and when people didn't know what to make of it. Well, now here John the evangelist is putting John the Baptist's words right at the front end of the gospel, and I'm really honoring John the Baptist in this way to say, like, you know, look, he's vindicated. He was right all along. It was hard for people to understand what he was saying because it was a big idea. What I'm saying here in the prologue is a big idea, but it's true. And John the Baptist, the innocent in the wilderness, he was right all along with what he was saying, even though it was hard to get it until we'd seen Jesus for ourselves and listened to him with our own ears and seen what happened on the cross and in the resurrection. We'll round out the rest of this prologue next time around. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.