John 1:1-18

Well, welcome to the 21st century! And to Y2K!

From the looks of it, the world has not come crashing to an end, and no one has been spirited off to heaven - although we won't know that for sure until all our folks get back from Florida! Despite a few brief power outages in the community over the weekend, it has been determined they are not Y2K related, but rather are simply the Y2ANYTIME experiences of living in Tellico Village. The national electric grid is still up and operating. The water faucets are pumping out water. And not one jet has fallen out of the sky! Still a little time to go before we know for sure, but it looks like we may be out of the woods on this one!

We could have predicted it, of course. Why, the Bible is full of stories of moments in history when it seemed like things just might unravel. Times when the world's computers needed another upgrade without which they would freeze up and send the whole planet into deadly chaos. But each time, God brought his people through. Why, don't you remember the story of Abraham and Isaac?

Abraham decided to upgrade his old 486 computer to Windows 98. His son Isaac, who went to college and knew about such things, said, "Dad, you can't do that! Why to upgrade to Windows 98 you'll need to install at least a Pentium-133 processor!"

"No problem," Abraham replies, "Remember when we were back in Ur of the Chaldeans? One day, when your mother wasn't looking, I snuck over to Best Buys and bought one. Along with a wide-screen TV!"

" See?" says Abraham, pulling back the flap of his tent to reveal a beautiful home theatre system.

"Well, even so," responds Isaac, "that old computer of yours has only 8 megabytes of random access memory. You need at least 16 meg of ram just to run Windows 98. And to effectively multitask over the Windows platform you should have a minimum of 64, and preferably 128 meg of ram. Where in the world are you going to get that kind of memory way out here in the desert?"

And without a pause, Abraham slowly lifts his eyes to heaven. And in Genesis 22, verse 8 - the story of Abraham and Isaac - we read his reply. "My son," Abraham sighs, "the Lord himself will provide the RAM!"

Remember? Get it?

Well, even if you don't, the point is that history is marked by one significant earth-shaking transition after another. And God can be trusted to bring us through them all. Regardless of what the doomsdayers say, God's "got the whole world in his hands." And we Christians need to embrace this fact that supercedes all the other facts of history. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God has caught this old world in its descending wobbly fall, and is presently working out all the details for its complete redemption and restoration. If there is a Millenium bug, it has never met a hacker quite like God who can not only overcome its problems, but even convert them to the good of his children.

You see, God has been Y2K compliant since the dawn of history. The more important question is, "Are we?"

Norman Vincent Peale once wrote about a trip he took to Jamaica. At the hotel where he was staying there was a map of the island. Looking at the map, he noticed some faint lettering that ran all the way across what looked like a very large chunk of uninhabited land. He had to draw closer and squint his eyes to make out what it said. It read, "The Land of Look-Behind."

Intrigued by this, Norman Vincent Peale asked the hotel owner what it meant. The owner answered that, back in the days of slavery, runaways from the oppressive sugar plantations sometimes escaped to this lonely and desolate territory shown on the map. They were usually pursued by a posse led by the slave owner or other authorities, with guns and dogs. The fugitive slaves were always on the run, always looking over their shoulders. That's why they called it, "The Land of Look Behind."

To be a Y2K compliant Christian person, you have to leave the land of look behind. You have to come and pitch your tent and live your life in the land of look ahead.

John speaks about this Y2K compliant religion in the first chapter of his Gospel. In verse 12, John declares something wonderful about the incarnation of God in Christ we celebrate here in the Christmas season. "...to all who received him," John writes, "who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God..."

Now, let's take a look at this promise in detail. First, John tells us that to receive Christ, you must first believe in his name. Do you remember how the angel told both Mary and Joseph that their baby's name was important? Gabriel said they should name their child Joshua. That's the Hebrew. The Greek is Jesus. And the name means "God's salvation."

To believe in Jesus' name has nothing to do with believing in his existence. It is so much more than that! To believe in Jesus' name is to believe that he really is the one who will save us from the destructiveness of Y2K bugs and all others. That he is the one who will free us from our sins and our past. That he is the one who will lead us into a new start in life. That he is the one who will reconnect us with God. That he is the one who will guide us safely through life's difficulties and losses. That he is the one who will empower us to benefit the lives of others, and show us how to significantly contribute to the creation of a just world. That he is the one who will introduce us to life in all its abundance, and rescue us from the destructive finality of death. To believe in Jesus' name is to trust Jesus to do for us what his name means. And that requires us to stop living in the land of look-behind and to start looking ahead to the God-possibilities in ourselves, in others, and in the world itself.

For instance, it is to believe that you can commit yourself to working through the struggles of an unhappy marriage. Jesus will help you try to save it. Jesus will provide the resources you don't have. You can stop looking over your shoulder at all the wouldas, couldas, and shouldas. Instead, you can start working toward making things better - at least on your side of the relationship - because now, with Jesus, you have a future with new possibilities! That's what it means for a Christian husband or Christian wife to believe in his name.

Or, for instance, it is to boldly give yourself to the people everyone else rejects because you know Jesus rejects no one, and in fact uses the concrete expressions of our love to reach marginalized people. You don't have to look behind at what a person has been or done. All that matters now is what can be because God loves that person! You see, Jesus has given us all a future! And to relate to others that way is what it means to believe in his name.

Or, for instance, it is to actively and relentlessly chip away at the things that create, sustain and contribute to poverty and injustice. After all, Jesus is the world's greatest advocate for the poor and the least among us. And, one day, there will be a new world order in which the lowly will inherit everything they are kept from now. Can you imagine what a joyous day that will be?! And you will help create that world! And to work for it is what it means to believe in his name.

You see, believing in Jesus is just not the same as believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Believing in Jesus is about actually committing yourself to the work of God's salvation! For yourself. For others. For the world! And to do that, you have to get up every day and discipline yourself to leave the land of look-behind. And move with God into the land of look-ahead. To Y2K and beyond. To the future that God is building.

May I ask you today: will you dare to believe in his name - for yourself - for others - and for the world?

Now, here's the second part of the promise, according to John's Gospel. Y2K compliant people who truly believe in Jesus' name by living and working for God's future, receive a divine download from heaven.com! It's a download of power. Power to BECOME! Power to become CHILDREN! Power to become children of GOD!

Bob Puckett recently shared with me a story about the power of becoming a child.

Its about a family having a meal at a restaurant. Erik, the baby, was in a high chair, looking at all the sights as children always do. Suddenly, the boy squealed with joy and said, "Hi!" Across the way, a man with a tattered rag of a coat - dirty, greasy and worn - smiled back. Erik's parents noticed that the man's pants were baggy, zipper at half mast, and his toes poked out of his shoes. His shirt was dirty, his hair uncombed and unwashed. He had whiskers too short to be called a beard, and his nose was so varicose it looked like a roadmap. They were too far away from the man to be able to smell him, but they were certain he did.

Erik had opened a can of worms. The dirty man's hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. "Hi there, baby! Hi there, boy! I see ya, Buster!"

Erik's father whispered to his wife. "Oh my God! What do we do?" The waitress was on the way with their food, so they couldn't leave. And Erik continued playing with the stranger, laughing at all the fun. Everyone in the restaurant noticed and was watching. The old geezer was creating a nuisance, and using the parents' beautiful baby boy to do it.

The meal came, and as they started to eat, the man shouted, "Hey, baby! Do you know how to play patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo?"

Erik's hands shot to cover his eyes.

"Hey!" the old derelict gushed. "Look! He knows peek-a-boo!"

Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk. Erik's mother and father were embarrassed. And angry. But what could they do? They ate in silence, all except Erik who just kept running through his repertoire of baby games for his admiring audience of one. The bum - in turn - reciprocated with his loud and slurred commentary.

Finally, the meal was over. The mother took Erik in her arms, and the three of them headed for the door. As they approached the old man, the wife prayed, "Lord, just let us out of here before he says anything."

But just as they passed the man's table, something unpredictable happened. Erik suddenly leaned out of his mother's arms and reached out in a baby's "pick me up" position. And, quick as a fox, the old man reached out to catch the child, and Erik propelled himself right out of his mother's arms and into the grasp of this filthy excuse for a human being. Erik's mother gasped.

Erik giggled. And then, in an act of total trust, love and submission, Erik laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and a tear leaked out from behind his lashes. His aged hands - full of grime, pain, and calluses - gently cradled the baby's bottom and stroked his little back. The old man rocked and cradled Erik for a long moment, and then his eyes opened. He looked straight at Erik's mother.

"You take care of this baby," he said in a firm, commanding voice. She somehow managed to gush out an "I will" from a throat that now contained a stone. The derelict pried Erik away from his chest - slowly, unwillingly, as though it hurt to do so. Ever so gently, he transferred Erik into the arms of his mother.

"God bless you, ma'am," sighed the man. "You've given me my Christmas gift."

They parted company, and Erik's mother cried all the way to the car. There in the cold of the night, she found herself praying, "My God, my God, forgive me!"

Later, in her own words, she described it this way: "I had just witnessed Christ's love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment, who simply saw a soul and loved it. And there I was, a person who saw only a lump of dirty clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who could see."

To all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives power. Power to become children. Power to become children of God! And such children will transform the world!

Are you willing to give childhood a shot again?

What is a Y2K compliant Christian? Why its a person who believes in Jesus' name, who leaves the land of look-behind to live in God's world of look-ahead, and who becomes a child again - by the power of God.

Jesus said, "Such will inherit the Kingdom of heaven."

Are you Y2K compliant?

Now is the time to begin. The 21st century has arrived. A new millennium has begun.

Believe in his name! Receive him today! Let God's power give you your childhood back!

And go and build the future!