Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-february-20-2023
John 1:1-18
The Word Became Flesh
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
This is a passage that pretty well known, but it’s one with a bunch of nuances that Bible scholars argue about at length. But they all seem to agree that it’s an important passage, both for what it says, and also for what it reveals to us about the history of the church and of the New Testament.
The scholars say the Gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be published, and probably came out somewhere between 90 and 100 AD. (That would mean it came out about 25 years after Matthew and Luke, and about 40 years after Mark.) By the time John appeared, the church had become an international movement. After 65 or 70 years of missionary activity by Paul and others, by the time John was published, there were more gentile followers of Jesus in the world than Jewish ones.
The area outside Israel was generally considered ‘the Greek world.’ Even though the Roman Empire exercised great military and political power, the Romans still venerated Greek philosophy. The Greek language was widely spoken (and you might remember that the New Testament was originally published in Greek). Educated people were trained in Greek philosophy and rhetoric. And one of the most influential schools of Greek philosophy taught that the universe was organized around a single principle — in our terms, that there was a purpose to the universe. The Greek word for this central principle of the universe was logos.
And when you look closely at this introduction to the Gospel of John, you can see that the apostle John and his disciples were trying to make the life and teachings of Jesus understandable to people who knew Greek philosophy. Maybe more importantly, John and his disciples were trying to help those people understand the significance of Jesus.
Some scholars even believe that the first eighteen verses of John – our reading for today – are actually an ancient hymn that gentile Christians sang in their worship to express their understanding of his significance.
They say that because this passage begins with the famous words, “In the beginning was the word,” and the Greek term that’s translated ‘word’ in this passage is logos. The text goes on to say that Jesus was that logos. So the author (or authors) of the Gospel of John seem to be affirming that there really is a principle at the heart of the universe, and that Jesus is that principle. Jesus is the reason for all of creation.
The passage goes on to say Jesus was present at the creation of the universe, and that he was a participant in creation. It says that Jesus was and is with God and that he even is God. It says that Jesus is the way that God brought light into a dark world, and that Jesus is the closest we will ever come to seeing the image of God.
All of those are important ideas, but that idea that Jesus is the logos, the central principle of the universe, that strikes me as the most important idea from this passage for us to keep firmly in mind.
You might remember that Jesus once said something like that about himself – it was actually in our text for worship a couple of weeks ago. Jesus described himself as “the fulfillment of the Law.” And when Jesus talked about “the Law,” he was describing himself as the fulfillment of the relationship between God and humankind. That’s pretty much the same point this introduction to the Gospel of John makes, just in Hebrew terms rather than in Greek terms.
In his history of philosophy, the French writer Luc Ferry made an interesting point. He wrote that when the Christian faith arrived on the world stage, the Greco-Roman religious tradition disappeared almost overnight. There are no temples to Zeus or Artemis in our towns and cities. The philosophical tradition of the Greeks is still widely studied, but with the exception of some statues, its religious tradition is on the trash heap of history.
Maybe we should say with the exception of a few ideas that were picked up an incorporated into Christian theology. Like the idea that the logos – the central principle of the universe – was Jesus. And the fact that the logos had come into the world in human form meant that God placed a high value on his relationships with people. So by his teaching and his example, Jesus made it clear that nothing brings us closer to God than helping to promote the flourishing of other people. Love for God and other people is the highest law.
So that’s why this passage is so important. Because it explained to a waiting world that the real principle at the heart of the universe had finally been revealed. That principle is Jesus. And Jesus is not only the principle that the universe is organized around – he also wants to be the principle that his followers organize our lives around.
And when that happens, when a person really starts organizing their life around Jesus, then that person begins to live out the love for God and love for neighbor that is the mark of a truly transformed life.
Let’s pray. Lord, we ask that by your Spirit, you would open our hearts to accept Jesus as the true center of our lives – as the principle around which those lives are organized. And let our lives display the same love for you and for others that Jesus showed every day he walked among us. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 29 and 82; Deuteronomy 6:1-15; and Hebrews 1:1-14. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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