In the Beginning...

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (NASB)

This is one of the most beautiful passages for me.  It carries hope and peace for me because it takes me to when there was nothing but my Master, and He begins creation.  J.R.R. Tolkien depicts creation as a symphony concert.  But I can also imagine it as an unaccompanied solo by the greatest Tenor with boundless range and richest timbre.  I am carried there and the first impression given is the presence of my Master, described as a duality at this point in order to introduce the Word as the Leading Character. 

John demonstrates technical mastery in his description here.  The verbs to be are all in the imperfect tense.  What that means is that he has brought the eternal quality of the existence of God to the forefront.  This tense is explicit in the ongoing nature of the action (here existence), and as it is imperfect, it is left open at both ends.  This is exactly as it should be describing the existence of God, leaving no room for a time when this existence is not going on.  Only the verbs relating to creation of anything are left behind in the past; the existence of God transcends the past entirely.

Much is made of the term John uses for Jesus, Logos.  I like best the connection he draws between both Gentile and Jew when using this term at the point of creation.  For the Jews, creation happened through the word of God.  For the Gentile, “the word” is the rational structure underlying the world.  John ties both to Jesus and posits both philosophies in the Person being introduced.  I am immediately given the background of this Character as the Creator God, yet also in the presence of God ("with" used here does not mean "among" but "before" or "in the presence of"), and like any understanding of God, having no beginning or end. 

It is a rational problem for a human mind to regard anything to be distinct pieces yet singular, yet John does not shrink back from this conundrum, but places it squarely before me.  God is what and Who He is, not merely what or Who I can comprehend.  This is comforting because it is consistent with this immense and immensely complex universe I live in.  It answers the paradoxes, the ironies, the dilemmas, and overwhelmingly offsets the abundance of evil I see in others and myself.  It’s going to be okay because my Master is even more incomprehensible and complex than this life.

And in this passage, this infinite God, the Word, carries the light of the life of humanity, shining in the darkness.  Hope based in the Person I worship is brought immanently to me and is the life given to me as a gift.  I have light and life, and that in the Word.  If this light and life is in the Word, then this Word is also in me, or rather I am in Him since I live in the sphere of this life and this light.  John loves the preposition in.  It is a preposition that unmistakably conveys a position within something else.  I am in my Master wherein both life and light are.  But this light and life is the light of men, of people.  It’s more than my sphere.

The light, the Light of men, means that I don’t live in this sphere alone, and I don’t live with just those who recognize this sphere.  The darkness cannot grasp (with both the idiomatic and literal meaning that conveys) this light, but that does not mean it is any less the light of men.  The Word is Master, and I recognize Him as such.   But that does not make Him any less the Master of those around me.  He is Master regardless of the submission of others.  He is not threatened by the rebellion of His human creatures any more than He was of the deceiver, the accuser, Lucifer.  The Master retains mastery in the midst of apparent chaos.

And so I have hope.  And so I have peace.  As Jesus enters the world in a stable fearlessly, so I enter my day carrying this assurance that my Master remains Master over all; even the numbskulls I will encounter today.  My response should be love because I am freed to fearlessly love, even numbskulls.  I am a numbskull loved by the Master of the universe, the Life and Light of His human creatures.  What chaotic event should cause me fear?  What expectation should I have that I can control anything, but rather I should expect my Master’s control over all to be complete.  I have peace and I have hope because the Word is infinitely eternal.