How do you tell the story of Jesus? Where do you begin—when do you begin? For the apostle Paul, the story of Jesus Christ is first and foremost the story of his crucifixion and resurrection, with little attention to his life and teaching. The Gospel of Mark takes us to the river, and begins the story with Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. Matthew and Luke begin with Jesus’ conception and birth, and they add genealogies tracing his line to Abraham and, in Luke’s case, all the way to Adam. Luke and Matthew, together with Isaiah, provide all the familiar characters and props of our pageants and nativity sets, the happy mash up of angels and shepherds, Mary and Joseph, the child in the manger, ox and ass, and the visitors from the east, following yonder star and bearing gifts for the newborn king.
And then John steps into the storytellers’ circle—and his poetic opening takes us neither to the river nor to the little town of Bethlehem; John takes us back, way back to the moment before the dawn of light and time and world. John tells the story, echoing the first line of Genesis: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Matthew and Luke direct our gaze away from the mansions and palaces, they want us to see that Jesus comes from the margins, the overlooked places, the humble homes and improvised shelters of the poor. John also directs our gaze away from the mansions and palaces of the world’s rulers and celebrities—but he points up, far beyond the star the magi followed.
Our generation has been very fortunate to see some of the fantastic images of the universe captured by the Hubble telescope, vast clouds of stars without number, shimmering, billowing, clusters of galaxies, billions of them, quantities and dimensions beyond fathomable—and this year we have seen the first images from the Webb telescope, with even more astonishing levels of resolution and detail, greater than even the boldest dreamers dared to imagine only a few months ago.
John would be thrilled. To think that telescopes allow human eyes to see way beyond our galaxy, and the deeper we can look into space, the farther back in time we are seeing, perceiving light that has traversed the universe over billions of years—it is mind-blowing and awesome beyond words. John would be thrilled to behold such cosmological marvels.
Cosmology is the system of knowledge about the origins of the universe. It it is a combination of two Greek words, cosmos and logos, with cosmos being the ordered everything-that-is, what we also call world or universe, and logos being that which orders it. In ancient Greek thought, logos is the logic that permeates and structures the universe, the divine reason that orders and gives meaning to all that is. And that is why we call the study of living things biology, and the study of rocks geology, and why you go and see an expert in cardiology when your heart needs a check-up. All things have a logos that orders them and their relationships to each other, from the smallest to the greatest, from the simplest to the most complex.
John, in the opening poetry of the gospel that bears his name, uses this term logos very prominently, saying, In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. In Jewish thought, logos was understood to be the word of God. God said, “Let their be light,” and there was light, we read in Genesis 1. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all their host by the breath of his mouth, we read in Psalm 33. For John, logos is divine speech, word, divine wisdom, divine instruction; logos represents intention and purpose. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it, the prophet Isaiah declared, giving voice to the word of the Lord.[1]
In the beginning was the Word: the Word through which all things came into being, the Word that came to Moses at Mount Sinai, the Word that came to the prophets, the Word that was with God before time and world, the Word that was God, because beyond time and world, God alone is. John doesn’t tell us a Christmas story. He gives us a single line from which everything he has to say unfolds, from the beginning all the way to what we hear and receive and see: The Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word at the beginning of all things, the Word that was and is and forever will be God, became a human being and moved into the neighborhood: visible, tangible, vulnerable, mortal like the rest of us.
John doesn’t tell us a Christmas story, but he does tell us of a birth. The Word was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him, did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. That is the nativity on John’s mind. The Word became flesh so that we might become who we are meant to be in what can only be described as a second birth into a new relationship with the One who speaks all things into being, and hence a new relationship with all things, with one another and with ourselves. The Word became flesh so that we might see his glory and let him order all things which in truth he has ordered since before the dawn of time, him being the very light of life. The Word became flesh so that we might be born into the true fullness of life. John compares this newness to a birth, because it’s not our doing, but rather our letting it be with us according to the Word of God, our trusting surrender to the labor of God.
John tells us we don’t have to wait for a future revealing of the fullness of God’s glory and God’s will for the world or for eternal life to be bestowed. The fullness we long for is available now in Jesus.[2] The light shines in the darkness, as it has shone since the dawn of time, and the darkness did not overcome it. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined, the prophet Isaiah declared.[3] We have seen glimpses of the true light that enlightens everyone, and we sing for joy like birds at the break of dawn. The fullness we long for has come. Thanks be to God.
[1] Isaiah 55:10-11
[2] Gail O’Day, “John.” Ed. Leander E. Keck, The New Interpreter’s Bible: Luke – John (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 497.
[3] Isaiah 9:2