Gospel: John 1:1-18
In the beginning … was the Word.
Before anything existed, long before the universe and the stars, long before this fragile earth and all that dwells on it, was a single Word. This Word – Logos – is the source of all things, a part of all things, a reflection of all things. All that has been, and is now, and will be, is grounded in Logos.
Being responsible for creating and the ability to exercise creativity are great gifts, and it’s remarkable to see the wide range of ways these gifts are given and used. Composers take pen to paper and develop incredibly beautiful music. Writers create character sketches and plot lines and build short stories and novels of great imagination, or they take their observations and emotions to construct beautiful poetry. Artists and sculptors put brushes to canvas or hands to clay and create magnificent objects of art.
Over the years I’ve had many chances to see some of the furniture that my sister’s boyfriend has built. Corner cupboards for the dining room. A huge bed frame with storage compartments underneath. A wonderfully rustic mailbox for the front of the house. All these pieces, like composing or writing, painting or sculpting, came to fruition only after many hours of thought, preparation and work.
None of the results of these creative endeavors can arise simply from speaking a word. So it’s even more remarkable to consider how everything that’s ever happened, everything we’ve ever experienced, can be traced back to the utterance of the Word.
But the Word is more than just the root of creation, far more. Well beyond simply being that spark, it envelops all the incarnation. The birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – everything he experienced as a part of humanity, everything he shared with God, everything he represents as our savior and redeemer – is bound up in this.
One way to consider this portion of John is to think of it as a parabola. As you may recall, a parabola is a symmetrical curve that starts at a point away from an axis on a graph, bends in, and then curves back to a distant point once more. What the Word represents in encompassing the entirety of the incarnation is a parabola. It’s a curve that begins away from the axis of humanity as a point unified with God, bends near to us as a point of earthly existence, and then curves away again to return to the heavenly kingdom.
To put in a bit of theological terminology, it is an arc stretching from pre-existence to existence to post-existence.
Today’s reading from John, a wonderful example of Biblical poetry trying to summarize something that can hardly be put into words, is at the far point of that arc. Long before the early councils and church fathers were debating the Trinity, this passage gives us a first view of Jesus’ relationship to God.
“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus distinct from God, sharing in creation, and Jesus as God, the source of creation. The fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among humanity is the miracle of this season, the miracle of the birth that we remembered just a few nights ago.
But where is the Word active in our lives now? Where do we hear that call of creation and see the Christ dwelling among humanity, even today as we await his return? Rather than looking for the Word, I would challenge us to consider that it isn’t elsewhere. It isn’t something to be found outside, but something to be found inside. We are echoes of the speaking of the Word, of the one who became flesh and lived among humanity.
I’m not necessarily sure that all my seminary professors – or indeed, any of them – would agree with what I’m about to do, but I’m going to swap out one word for one or two others to make my point. Listen as I re-read these verses: “In the beginning were we, and we were with God, and we were God. We were in the beginning with God.”
We’ve always been God’s, and we’ve always been with God. The covenants with Noah and Abraham; the rescue from enslavement in Egypt; freedom from the Babylonian Exile; the repeated efforts by the prophets to call us back across the divides we created between us and God; and now, the words of John the Baptizer and the incarnation. From the moment everything was spoken into existence, even before then, we were God’s. Through our being given the gift of salvation, we are with God.
Through Jesus, the infinite Word taking human form, and the sacrifice he made for us through his death on the cross and his resurrection, we are brought into God.
In the beginning was the Word – and this Word is only the beginning.
Amen.